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BAGHDAD : Powerful bombs, one set off by a female suicide attacker, ripped through two bustling Baghdad markets on Friday and killed at least 64 people, scattering crowds and leaving a trail of body parts, officials and witnesses said.
At least 100 people were wounded in the worst attacks in the Iraqi capital since last August 1 when three car bombs killed more than 80 people.
Police said the woman suicide bomber struck in the popular Al-Ghazl pet market in central Baghdad in mid-morning when hundreds of people were out enjoying the Friday Muslim holiday.
It had earlier been thought the bomb had been placed in a box used for carrying birds.
The head of the bomber was seen lying in a pool of blood while officials gathered body parts and the personal effects of those killed and wounded, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.
Dead animals lay among the human flesh, while officials hosed down the site and ambulances raced away from the market, their sirens blaring.
Some bodies were packed into bags and placed in the back of police pick-up trucks.
A second bombing soon afterwards targeted a market in southeastern Baghdad Al-Jadida neighbourhood, which was also crowded with people on the Friday holiday, security officials said.
The dead and injured from the two blasts were taken to five hospitals across the city.
An official at Al-Kindi hospital said at least 34 bodies had been received.
"We have a disaster here. There are too many bodies to count. Many of them are just pieces of flesh," he said.
Al-Nafis hospital said it had received at least six bodies and that 25 wounded people had been admitted.
A defence ministry official said the toll from the two attacks was at least 43 dead and 85 wounded. Most of the casualties occurred at Al-Ghazl.
The attack was the second in months on the pet market, which opens only on Fridays and is always crowded.
Last November 23, two bombs also hidden in boxes exploded simultaneously in the Al-Ghazl market, killing 13 people.
Vendors use cardboard boxes to transport birds to the market which, with its vast array of birds ranging from rare species smuggled from Brazil and Africa to noisy parrots, is a major weekly attraction.
The traders arrive each Friday with birds and other animals such as rabbits and Siamese cats imported from Iran and set up roadside stalls.
The attacks come even as Iraqi officials reported civilian deaths across Iraq in January fell to a 23-month low.
Combined figures obtained from the defence, interior and health ministries showed that a total of 541 Iraqis -- 463 civilians, 22 soldiers and 56 policemen -- were killed in January.
The figure is down from 568 last December, 606 in November, 887 in October and 840 in September.
US military commanders say attacks of all types are down 62 percent after peaking in June, to levels not seen since before February 2006, when a wave of sectarian violence was unleashed by the bombing of a Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra.
The bloodshed that erupted after the shrine attack spiked in January 2007 with 1,992 deaths reported by the three ministries.
Iraqi and US officials attribute the drop in violence to a "surge" of an extra 30,000 US troops in Iraq, the formation by Sunni leaders of anti-Qaeda fronts, and Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's freezing of the activities of his Mahdi Army militia.
But US commanders warn that Iraq is still a dangerous place and that Al-Qaeda -- though on the run -- is far from defeated.
While the number of Iraqis killed in January fell, US casualties rose to 39 American soldiers killed during the month, up from 23 in December and on a par with figures in October and November.
However the American toll is down from a high of 126 in May, when the extra US troops were moving into position.
Research data released in London this week estimated that more than one million Iraqis have died in violence in the country since the US-led invasion of 2003.
- AFP /ls
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