Bomb explodes at Baghdad market

A further 26 people were wounded when the bomb exploded in the populous Shia district of the Iraqi capital.

Three police officers were wounded in a separate bombing near their patrol in Baghdad's upscale Mansour district, interior ministry officials said.

At least six people were killed in a spate of attacks around Baquba.

Three of the victims were brothers who owned an agricultural shop while a fourth was a salesman, the AFP news agency reports.

In other violence:

• Five bodies were pulled out of the Tigris river near the town of Suwayra, 45km (25 miles) south of the capital
• An Iraqi soldier keeping guard of oil fields was shot dead in Balad, 80km (50 miles) north of Baghdad
• At least 20 people were wounded, and there were reports of casualties, in a mortar attack on a market in Muqdadiya, 90km (55 miles) north-east of Baghdad
• A US soldier was killed in fighting with insurgents in the restive western Anbar province, the US military said.

Crackdown

The blast in Sadr City happened just after noon, killing "seven people when an Opel car was detonated," Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said.

One eyewitness told Reuters television children and women work at the market to earn a living.

"Was the car bomb targeting those who are selling tomato and eggplant?" the witness, Jassim, asked.

Sadr City is Baghdad's largest Shia neighbourhood and a stronghold of the radical Shia cleric Moqtadr Sadr.

It has been repeatedly targeted by Sunni militants, and is now heavily patrolled by Iraqi police as well as members of Moqtadr Sadr's Mehdi army.

The Iraqi government and US military have launched a major drive to reclaim parts of Baghdad from the gunmen and the bombers.

Thousands of US troops have been drafted in to the capital in recent weeks to tackle the rising sectarian violence.

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