BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Five explosions ripped through central Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 90 people, amid memorials marking last year’s attack on a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, police said.
More than 190 people were wounded in the bombings, sandwiched around a commemoration on the anniversary of the attack on Al-Askariya Mosque, also known as the Golden Mosque.
The February 2006 bombing is blamed for sparking an eruption of sectarian violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. It has been a year since the attack, according to the Islamic calendar.
In the deadliest attack, three car bombs exploded at the Shorja market, killing at least 79 people and wounding 170 others, police said. The blasts sent dense, black smoke rising hundreds of feet into the midday air.
The explosions destroyed shops and stalls at the market, according to The Associated Press. Inside the warehouse-like building, clothing mannequins were laying in thick pools of blood, AP reported.
Witnesses said buildings were on fire and emergency workers and firefighters responded.
Iraq’s Interior Ministry accused al Qaeda in Iraq of responsibility in the attack and detained three people, including two foreigners and an Iraqi.
In another attack Monday, a roadside bomb ignited in the Bab al-Sharji commercial district minutes before the commemoration began, killing nine and wounding more than 20, police said.
Also Monday, two people were killed and three wounded when a roadside bomb hit a civilian car in northern Baghdad’s Qahira neighborhood, police said.
To mark the Samarra anniversary, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called on Iraqis in the nation’s mosques to chant “God is great,” and “to ring bells in all the churches,” according to AP.
Iraq’s most powerful Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said in a statement that last year’s attack “pushed the country into blind violence, in which tens of thousands of innocents were killed,” AP reported.
Al-Sistani urged the government to rebuild the damaged shrine, which has been secured by authorities since the February 22 attack, according to AP.
The ayatollah also called for restraint from people who are marking the anniversary, AP reported.
Sunni, Shiite clerics meet
The attacks Monday came as Sunni and Shiite clerics gathered in the holy city of Najaf for a conference to call for national unity. They accused militants of wanting to split Iraq and drive it into a civil war.
The conference was being held in Fatmiya Shiite mosque.
Baghdad marketplaces have been frequent targets for insurgents, including attacks on markets this month in Baghdad and Hilla, in Babil province south of the capital.
On February 3, a suicide truck bombing killed 128 civilians at a market in Baghdad’s Sedriya district. At least 73 civilians were killed February 1 in simultaneous suicide bombings at a Hilla market.
Security sweep to shut down 10 areas of Baghdad
The plan to secure Iraq’s capital will move to a higher level this week when Iraqi army and police forces close down 10 areas of Baghdad, al-Maliki said Sunday.
Those areas will be shut down to root out terrorists and their weapons, the prime minister said, and to secure homes and buildings that people have been forced to leave.
Al-Maliki expressed confidence in the security plan, which will be supported by U.S. forces, and repeated the operation will deal with all outlaws in the same manner, regardless of their affiliation.
Some observers have predicted that followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia would be overlooked in the security crackdown. The al-Sadr movement has backed al-Maliki, but his militia has been blamed for much of the sectarian violence in Iraq.
But Iraqi Deputy Health Minister Hakem Abbas al-Zamili, who is linked to al-Sadr’s group, was detained Thursday in a raid conducted by special Iraqi army forces, backed by U.S. advisers.
The deputy minister is accused of corruption and of being implicated in the deaths of other Health Ministry employees, according to U.S. officials.
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