Multiple Attacks Kill Nearly 150 in Iraqi Capital

By ROBERT F. WORTH and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. - New York Times: "Insurgents staged at least a dozen suicide bombings that ripped through Baghdad in rapid succession on Wednesday, killing almost 150 people and wounding more than 500 in a coordinated assault that left much of the capital paralyzed.

Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia claimed responsibility for the assault, which inflicted the biggest death toll in Baghdad since the American-led invasion of Iraq toppled Saddam Hussein more than two years ago.

The violence appeared to be retaliation for the weeklong siege of the insurgent stronghold of Tal Afar and included a bombing in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad that used a new tactic: luring scores of day laborers to a minivan with promises of work, and then blowing it up. At least 112 died in that blast alone, the second highest death toll from any single terrorist bombing in Iraq since the invasion.

The attacks coincided with the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, attended by top Iraqi leaders and President Bush, who pressed for a resolution calling on all nations to take action against the incitement of terrorism.

Wednesday's attacks demonstrated again how easily insurgents could still stage well-coordinated attacks, despite a series of highly publicized military offensives like the recent one in Tal Afar, a northern city that has been an insurgent base.

The explosions struck Shiite civilians, Iraqi security forces and American troops, the favored targets of Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency. The worst attack singled out workers in a Shiite neighborhood, Kadhimiya, with an explosion that tore through a crowded intersection, leaving the facades of nearby shops shattered and puddles of blood on the streets.

Reporting for this article was contributed by Eric Schmitt from Doha, Qatar, and Thaier Aldaami, Sahar Najeeb and Benjamin Lowy from Baghdad."