Bomb blasts in Iraq kill nearly 200

April 19, 2007

Several car bombs in Baghdad, Iraq have killed 190 people on Wednesday and wounded over 200 others in what is being reported as the worst string of bombings to occur in Iraq since 2003 when the United States invaded the nation.

One bomb in the Sadriyah market in Baghdad killed at least 140 people. 150 others were wounded in the attack. The same market was under re-construction after it was targeted in February by a bomb which nearly destroyed it. 135 people were killed in that attack.

Just after the blasts, the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki had the Iraqi army colonel in charge of the Sadriyah district arrested and called those responsible for the blasts "soldiers of Satan."

"This monstrous attack... did not distinguish between the old and young, between men and women. It targeted the population in a way that reminds us of the massacres and genocide committed by the former dictatorship," Maliki told reporters.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq is believed to be responsible for the attacks, though no one has claimed responsibility.