Bombs ravage Baghdad markets killing 88

IRAQ: Bombs laid waste to crowded markets in central Baghdad killing 88 people as Iraqis marked the first anniversary of a Shi'ite shrine bombing that pushed the country to the brink of civil war.

The blasts took place about the time Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in remarks commemorating the bombing of the Samarra mosque, warned that Iraq had no future unless a U.S.- backed offensive against militants in Baghdad succeeded.

In the deadliest attack, simultaneous blasts pulverised Shorja market, Baghdad's oldest, killing 79 people, destroying vendor stalls and setting ablaze an eight-storey warehouse. Police said 165 people were wounded.

The Shorja market, the main supplier for countless small shops in Baghdad and central Iraq, has been bombed frequently.

A separate roadside bomb at the Bab al-Sharji market, also in central Baghdad, killed nine people and wounded 21.

The timing of the noon bombings, on the anniversary by the Islamic calendar of the destruction of the Golden Dome Mosque, appeared aimed at fanning sectarian strife as U.S. and Iraq forces step up a security plan in the capital, seen as a last chance to avert all-out war between majority Sh'ites and Sunnis.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said three car bombs exploded in quick succession at Shorja.

Meanwhile iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied that Iran is supplying sophisticated weapons to Iraqi militants and said peace would return to Iraq only when U.S. and other foreign forces leave.

"The U.S. administration and (U.S. President George W.) Bush are used to accusing others," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with U.S. television network ABC.

U.S.-led forces in Baghdad on Sunday showed off what U.S. officials termed "a growing body" of evidence of Iranian weapons being used to kill their soldiers.

The officials showed journalists fragments of what they said were Iranian-manufactured weapons and said that those at the "highest levels" of Tehran's government were involved in arming Iraqi militants.

Ahmadinejad said the fact that U.S.-led forces in Iraq were "showing some pieces of papers" and calling them documents did not prove anything.

"There should be a court to prove the case and to verify the case," Ahmadinejad said, speaking through an interpreter.

Meanwhile U.S. House of Representatives Democrats unveiled a resolution opposing a troop buildup in Iraq, setting up a confrontation this week over President George W. Bush's war strategy.

Baghdad, Tehran, Washington, Tuesday, Reuters.