Baghdad calm ends; worst toll in months

BAGHDAD - With U.S. forces imposing tough security measures to thwart car bombings, Iraqi insurgents are increasingly using women and teenagers as suicide bombers, a trend that on Friday led to the worst daily death toll in Baghdad since August.

At least 91 people were killed and nearly 150 were wounded when explosions ripped through two crowded Baghdad pet markets. The attacks, which occurred within 15 minutes of each other, appeared to be the sixth and seventh suicide bombings in Iraq by women or teenagers since Nov. 27.

Witnesses said the bombers were women who'd slipped into the markets without being searched, as Iraqi security forces include few women and men aren't allowed to search women. Iraqi police are trying to recruit more female members.

An official who speaks for Baghdad security chief Qassim al-Moussani said the women might have been mentally retarded and forced to wear suicide vests that were detonated remotely.

Other police officials expressed skepticism about the claim, saying it was made too quickly for any investigation to have taken place.

Yet Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seemed to echo that version in his condemnation of the attacks. "The terrorists' use of a mentally deranged woman has uncovered the lowly ethics of these criminal gangs and their deceit and animosity toward humanity," he said.

U.S. military officials said that 15 suicide bombers struck throughout Iraq in the first 25 days of January, five more than in the same period a year ago.

Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. spokesman, said in an e-mail that the increase in American troops in Iraq had made it harder for Islamic militants to build large vehicle bombs and slip them into markets and neighborhoods, many of which have been encircled by large concrete walls.

"Suicide vests or smaller hand-carried bombs are of course more mobile and easier to transport," he said, and have become the weapons of choice.

Evidence found

There was no doubt that the first bombing, at about 10:15 a.m. at the Ghazil market in central Baghdad, was a suicide attack; police found the head of the suspected bomber, and witnesses recorded its gruesome recovery on their cell phones.

Bombs have struck the Ghazil market, which sits between neighborhoods controlled by rival Sunni and Shiite Muslim factions, three times in the last year.

There was some confusion about the perpetrator of the second bombing, at a dove market in the city's southeast.

Witnesses said a woman wearing a long traditional robe known as an abaya had triggered the explosion, but a police official told McClatchy that authorities were still investigating whether the explosion might have come from a cage or box.

The coordinated blasts appeared to reinforce U.S. suggestions that Al-Qaida in Iraq may be increasingly desperate and running short of able-bodied men willing or available for such suicide missions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.