at leastBAGHDAD — Two bombings killed at least 54 people and wounded 123 more in a bustling shopping district in the heart of Baghdad on Thursday evening, Iraqi authorities said.
The attack, in the Karrada neighborhood, was the worst the capital has seen since early February, when bombings killed almost 100 people at two Baghdad pet markets, and reinforced fears that insurgents can still carry out devastating bombings in well-guarded areas despite reduced levels of violence in recent months.
According to witnesses, the attackers used an old tactic to maximize the casualties: detonating one bomb and then using a second blast to kill unsuspecting passers-by who rush to the scene to aid the victims of the first explosion.
Thursday’s initial explosion sent shards of glass, shrapnel, blood and flesh across a radius of 50 yards. People rushed to the scene to tend to the wounded. Then, minutes later, a man wearing an explosive vest ran into in the crowd and blew himself up, killing many more people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/world/middleeast/07iraq.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print