Truck bomber kills over 135 in deadliest Iraq blast

A suicide bomber killed over 135 people yesterday in the deadliest single bombing in Iraq since the 2003 war, driving a truck laden with one tonne of explosives into a market in a mainly Shi'ite area of Baghdad.

The blast, which Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed on Saddam Hussein supporters and other Sunni militants, shattered fruit and vegetable stalls, caved in shop fronts and left the smashed bodies of shoppers strewn in the street.

It came as US and Iraqi troops prepared for a planned offensive seen as a last-ditch effort to stem worsening sectarian bloodshed that kills hundreds in Baghdad every week. "It was a terrible scene. Many shops and houses were destroyed," said one resident, Jassem, 42, who rushed from his home to help pull people from the rubble after hearing the explosion that rocked central Baghdad. Maliki vowed in January to launch a crackdown in the capital to crush insurgents who have defied attempts by his government to get control of security, but it has not yet begun.

US President George W. Bush has said he is sending 21,500 reinforcements to Iraq, most earmarked for the Baghdad offensive, despite vocal opposition at home, especially among Democrats who now control both houses of Congress.

Speaking to House of Representatives Democrats yesterday, Bush assured them that his commitment to Maliki's government was not "open-ended" and it would have to meet certain benchmarks. A US intelligence report said on Friday that escalating violence between minority Sunni Arabs and politically dominant majority Shi'ites met the definition of civil war.

Police said 305 people were wounded. The casualties swamped the capital's hospitals. There were chaotic scenes at Ibn al- Nafis hospital in central Baghdad, where hallways overflowed with wounded on trolleys. Yesterday's bombing will again throw the spotlight on Maliki's planned security sweep in the capital and whether it will succeed where other similar crackdowns have failed.

His critics say an offensive last summer failed because the Iraqi army committed too few troops and because he was reluctant to confront the Mehdi Army militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a key political ally which the Pentagon has said now poses a greater threat to peace in Iraq than Sunni Islamist Al-Qaeda.

An Iraqi militant group linked to Al-Qaeda vowed in a Web recording yesterday to widen its attacks to all parts of Iraq instead of just focusing on Baghdad and would only stop when "Bush signs a surrender accord".