IRAQ - Jan 22 - Iraq Attacks Kill At Least 88.

Raising the prospect of yet more intensified sectarian fighting here, two powerful car bombs rip through a crowded market in central Baghdad, killing at least 88, wounding 160 and leaving the area littered with pieces of human bodies amid the flotsam of second-hand goods that had drawn customers to the area. The bombings, among the most deadly in the past year, were timed to inflict maximum carnage in the Shi'ite neighbourhood, occurring around noon local time, when shoppers and commuters, who use the area as an informal transportation hub, tend to gather. "Bottles of perfumes and deodorants were flying in the air like small rockets", said Ali Hussein 47, a biologist who was heading home when he was knocked off his feet by the explosion. "I was wounded in my right leg", he said outside the Kindi hospital, which was quickly overwhelmed with victims. Even with chaos enveloping the country, American soldiers began heading into some of Baghdad's most troubled areas, setting up new bases where they planned to work with the Iraqi security forces to restore order. Possibly in anticipation of the American initiative, there were indications that Shi'ite militia members had taken a lower profile in recent weeks. American military officials said they had arrested major militia leaders, and judging by the numbers of bodies found on the streets in Baghdad each morning, it appeared that the activities of the death squads had eased somewhat. But the bombings in Baghdad, along with an attack on a Shi'ite town north of Baghdad that killed 15, followed a week of violent attacks on Shi'ite areas, including twin car bombings at a university in Baghdad last week that left 65 dead and threatened to spur yet more bloodletting. In the past, attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents have been met with swift reprisals, a deadly cycle that left more than 34,000 Iraqis dead last year. Now, however, the American military is positioning troops in outposts on Sunni-Shi'ite fault lines, and military officials privately express concerns that a renewed period of intense sectarian fighting could easily overwhelm their efforts. Elsewhere in Baghdad, a Sunni mosque in Doura was blown up Jan 21 night. There were no reports of casualties, and the mosque had been largely abandoned as Shi'ites took control of the area around it. Residents said the attack was probably revenge for the bombing of a Shi'ite mosque in the neighbourhood last week. The bombings at the market, directed so specifically at civilians, seemed explicitly intended to elicit a response from the Shi'ites, much like the bombings in Sadr City one day last fall that killed 144 people. From the eastern banks of the nearby Tigris River, the two explosions could be heard going off in quick succession, with seconds between blasts. Police officials said they were so large that each of the cars probably contained more than 90 kilograms, or 200 pounds, of explosives. Huge clouds of smoke billowed high into the sky, and as the fires caused by the explosions engulfed at least a dozen cars, the cloud drifted over the heavily fortified Green Zone, a short distance away. Elsewhere in the country, Iraqi security forces and government officials continued to come under attack. The Sunni Arab mayor of Baquba, Khalid al-Sanjari, was abducted Jan 22, and after armed gunmen swept him away from his office, they burned it to the ground, according to a local police official. Residents in Baquba said he had close ties with armed groups from the regime of Saddam Hussein. In Tal Afar, considered a success story in the American occupation of Iraq, the police were the targets in a bombing attack that left three dead and nine wounded. The American military, which quelled much of the violence in Tal Afar after an intensive intervention, has been using its actions there as a model for a new strategy to secure Baghdad. The bombing in Baghdad was followed by prolonged gun battles. The fighting could be heard across the city, although officials did not release any casualty figures from the skirmishes. At the site of the car bombings, which took place at the popular market in Bab al-Sharji, next to Iraq's Museum of Modern Art, Iraqi Army troops spotted a man on a nearby rooftop shortly after the attack, filming the carnage. Ahmad Fadam, Wisam A. Habeeb and Qais Mizher contributed reporting. Another Iraq resolution Another bipartisan group of three senators offered a resolution in Washington against President George W. Bush's Iraq policy, in which they declared their opposition to his plans to increase the American troop force in Iraq by 21,500. The resolution, put forward by two Republicans and a Democrat on the eve of the president's State of the Union speech, was another indicator of how political support for Bush's approach was flagging. One sponsor, Senator John Warner, Republican of Virginia, who has just stepped down as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was alarmed at the prospect that American soldiers would continue to be caught in sectarian violence, "the origins of which sometimes go back thousands of years". Another Republican committee member, Susan Collins of Maine, said a recent trip to Iraq had convinced her that it would be "a major mistake" to deploy more American troops in Baghdad. Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, was the other sponsor.