Car bomb rips through crowded market in Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters/AFP) - A car bomb ripped through a crowded market in southern Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 33 people and prompting angry protests by residents about the failure to protect them, officials and witnesses said.
Police swiftly locked down Al-Bathaa town, 30km west of Nassariya that has seen little violence, while hospital officials appealed for help from neighbouring cities to cope with the wounded.
Colonel Aziz al-Atabi, media director for the Iraqi armys 10th division, said 33 people were killed and 70 wounded. The governor of Nassariya blamed the attack on Al-Qaeda.
Pictures posted online by local journalists showed the charred wreck of a car the bomb was planted in, burnt body parts and bloodstained rags among vegetables strewn on the floor.
High schoolteacher Hussein Salim said the market was supposed to be guarded by the police. He said he rushed to the scene and helped gather body parts, some of which had been blown onto the roof of nearby homes.
How could the car enter the market? It was crowded with people ... The police neglected their job, he said. I saw five children and six women among the dead.
Salim said angry locals protested when the areas police chief and Talib Al-Hassan, the Nassariya governor, arrived on the scene, prompting the governors bodyguards to open fire.
Al-Hassan told Reuters they had only fired in the air.
As the explosion was big, some people gathered at the scene to watch or look for their loved ones. The security forces shot in the air to disperse them and save their lives, he said.
We accuse Al-Qaeda. The area is open and there are many roads leading to it. We have little clues about the accused. The security forces are working to get precise information.
Al-Hassan gave a lower toll of 19 killed and 65 wounded, and said he had replaced the Al-Bathaa police chief.
US military helicopters hovered overhead after the blast.
The sectarian bloodshed and insurgency unleashed by the 2003 US-led invasion has fallen sharply across Iraq since its peak in 2006/07, and the south has tended to be one of the quietest areas.
Later on Wednesday, civilians in the Bathaa town began shouting at security forces whom they blamed for the attack and police responded by firing bullets into the air, according to Bathaa mayor Ali Fahad.
The number of casualties was the highest in a single attack in Iraq since May 20, when a powerful car bomb tore through a Baghdad street full of diners, killing 40 people and wounding 83.
Dozens of my friends were killed or injured, there was smoke everywhere, said 44-year-old grocer Hassan Ali, who was being treated for neck and back injuries at the hospital.
The bombing followed an attack on Tuesday that killed two anti-Qaeda militiamen and wounded their commander in the town of Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad.
In another attack in the centre of the former rebel bastion of Fallujah west of Baghdad, five civilians were wounded when a bomb fixed to a parked motorcycle exploded.
Seven people were also killed and dozens wounded in Baghdad on Monday when a bomb planted on a minibus exploded, security officials said.
Despite a surge in violence in April, Iraq has insisted that the US pullout timetable, enshrined in a landmark security pact concluded with Washington in November last year, will not be altered.
The US military is scheduled to leave major urban areas by the end of this month in a key step ahead of a complete withdrawal by the end of 2011.