A suicide truck bomber struck a market in Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least 102 people, police and hospital officials said. The Health Ministry put the figure at 105 killed and 331 wounded.
According to the AP, the attacker was driving a truck carrying food when he detonated his explosives, destroying stores and stalls in the Sadriyah market, police said. More than 200 people were wounded, police and hospital officials said.
Officials said nearby hospitals were being flooded with victims from the explosion. The blast occurred at 4:40 p.m..
Hours later, mortars slammed into several predominantly Sunni areas in Baghdad, killing at least two people and wounding nearly 20, police said.
Earlier, a series of car bombs struck the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk in a two-hour span on Saturday, killing at least four people and injuring 37, police said. The blasts struck various parts of the city.
Violence also erupted elsewhere in cities to the north of the capital, with clashes in Mosul prompting the city to impose a vehicle ban while four policemen died in an attack on a checkpoint in Samarra, police said.
The attacks in Kirkuk started at about 9:40 a.m. when a car packed with explosives blew up near the offices of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani, leader of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. At least two people were killed and 30 injured, police Col. Anwar Hassan said. Another car bomb went off about 20 minutes later near a girls' school in the south of the city, but no casualties were reported, Hassan said, according to the AP.
A third car bomb hit a gas station at 10:10 a.m. in Kirkuk, injuring three civilians, followed by two other parked car bomb in a commercial area about 20 minutes after that in the southern half of the city.
A sixth car bomb exploded elsewhere in southern Kirkuk at 11:50 a.m., while two roadside bombs targeted police patrols at about the same time in a predominantly Christian area in the north of the city.
