Good Lord

Today is a very bloody day in Baghdad. First from The Guardian:

Up to six car bombs killed 133 people in the predominantly Shia Baghdad suburb of Sadr City today.

Police said 201 people had been wounded in the bombings - one of the most devastating attacks since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 - and the Iraqi health minister warned the death toll could rise.

"Many of the dead have been reduced to scattered body parts and are not counted yet," Ali al-Shemari said.

More from the BBC:

In the first blast at about 1500 local time, a car exploded in the Jamila food market, where eyewitnesses told reporters that burned bodies and human flesh littered the ground.

It was followed by two other blasts, also believed to be suicide car bomb attacks, at 15-minute intervals.

The vegetable market had been packed with shoppers buying provisions ahead of the Friday holiday.

The bomb went off in an area where people gather to pick up the minibuses that operate as taxis in the city.

Of course, this begat reprisals (via the WaPo):

The Shiites responded almost immediately, firing 10 mortar rounds at the Abu Hanifa Sunni mosque in Azamiya, killing one person and wounding 14 people in an attack on the holiest Sunni shrine in Baghdad.

And now Reuters is reporting that the Iraqi government is imposing an indefinite curfew. I wonder if VP Cheney still thinks we're in the last throes.

[UPDATE] From Al Jazeera:

About 30 masked and heavily-armed men also attacked the health ministry in central Baghdad and engaged security guards in a fierce gun battle, trapping 2,000 employees inside the building on Thursday.

Looks like any surprise visit to Iraq by Cheney during his trip to Saudi Arabia has been canceled.

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