BAGHDAD, Dec. 12 — At least 56 people, most of them Shiite laborers looking for work, were killed today when a pickup truck packed with explosives was detonated in a crowded square in the city’s center this morning, Iraqi officials and witnesses said. At least 220 more were wounded.
Also today, a bomb was discovered at the Golden Shrine in Samarra, a holy site for Shiites, the American military reported. A large bomb that was detonated there in February by Al Qaeda severely damaged the shrine and set off waves of sectarian killings and reprisals across the country.
The bomb found today by the Iraqi police went off while it was being removed, causing minor damage to a doorway but no injuries, the military said.
In Baghdad, the latest of a series of bombings aimed at the city’s Shiites took place in Tarayan Square, a market across the Tigris River from the government Green Zone that has become an informal hiring site, luring mostly workers come from the city’s eastern, predominantly Shiite side. It has been the site of previous blasts.
In recent weeks, American military officials have described the battle for control of Baghdad as a steady stream of individual killings of Sunnis carried out by Shiite death squads, punctuated by bombings and larger attacks carried out by Sunni insurgents or Al Qaeda members against Shiites.
And the dead keep piling up....
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