Two bombs exploded seconds apart in a predominantly Shiite commercial area in central Baghdad today, killing at least 78 people and wounding at least 156.
The first blast occurred shortly after noon local time when a bomb left in a bag placed among the stalls of vendors selling DVDs and second-hand clothes exploded in the Bab al-Sharqi area between Tayaran and Tahrir squares.
It was followed almost immediately by a parked car bomb just yards away.
Police and hospital officials said at least 78 people were killed and 156 wounded.
The wounded were taken to nearby al-Kindi Hospital where emergency personnel worked feverishly over the bloodied and badly wounded survivors.
A suicide bomber killed at least 63 people in the same region last month.
The explosions came hours after gunmen killed a female teacher as she was on her way to work at a girls' school in the mainly Sunni area of Khadra in western Baghdad, police said, adding that the teacher's driver was wounded in the drive-by shooting.
Later, two mortar shells slammed into a primary school in Dora, the dangerous south Baghdad neighbourhood, killing a woman who was waiting to take her child home. Eight students were wounded, police said.
Two U.S. Marines were killed on Sunday in separate attacks in the Anbar province, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, the US military said.
The deaths came a day after 25 US troops were killed in the third-deadliest day since the war started in March 2003 - eclipsed only by the one-day toll of 37 US fatalities on January 26, 2005, and 28 on the third day of the US invasion.
