BAGHDAD — A carefully orchestrated suicide bombing Thursday in a crowded shopping district killed at least 55 Iraqi civilians and security officials and injured 131 people.
The death toll was expected to rise overnight as hospitals in the capital struggled to contend with shrapnel and burn victims, many of them women and children enjoying an evening out at the start of the Muslim weekend.
The bombing followed by three days an attack that killed 26 people in Baghdad's Bab al Muadam district and by a month suicide attacks against Shiite Muslim pilgrims that killed nearly 100 people.
Thursday's assault raised fears of an upsurge in the kind of large-scale Sunni Arab attacks on Shiite Muslim civilians that inspired sectarian reprisals and pushed Iraq toward civil war in 2006.
The bombing also showed the insurgents' ability to evade the most elaborate security precautions officials can employ to protect Iraqi civilians. It took place in the upscale Karada neighborhood along one of the capital's most tightly guarded urban corridors.
The bombing came at a time when the U.S. military is slowly pulling out the 28,500 additional troops it deployed to central Baghdad last year to reduce sectarian and insurgent violence. The buildup reduced by 60% the number of violent attacks in Iraq late last year, but the violence has crept back up in recent weeks with a string of attacks, including coordinated suicide bombings Feb. 1 that killed 99 people at two Baghdad pet markets.
Thursday's attack appeared designed to inflict maximum casualties.
An initial explosion went off before 7 p.m. in a dumpster near an outdoor produce market in Karada, one of the capital's liveliest areas. The blast killed three civilians and injured a dozen other people.
The disruption attracted a crowd of onlookers, rescuers and security officials. A suicide bomber wearing an explosives-packed belt beneath what some described as a leather jacket was among the crowd.
He set off his bomb about five minutes after the first explosion, security officials said.
"I ran outside to see what was going on, only to have the second blast going off," said Kareem Abdullah, the 27-year-old proprietor of a clothing shop 200 yards from the bombing site. "I could see fire and smoke. I saw people thrown to the ground. I couldn't tell if they were unconscious or dead."
