A suicide bomber killed 59 people in a crowded Iraqi market on Tuesday after luring Shi'ite day labourers aboard his minivan with an offer of casual work. The blast in Kufa, near Najaf, was one of the bloodiest attacks of the year and followed a gun and grenade attack on another market on Monday that killed a similar number. Clashes broke out between police and angry crowds demanding better security after the Kufa bomb, which also wounded 132 people in the city south of Baghdad. Police in Kufa were pelted with rocks by angry crowds, many of whom demanded that militias loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr take over security there. The explosion, some 50-100 metres from a golden-domed Shi'ite shrine, tore through the minibus shortly after it had pulled out of the market with a group of labourers aboard. "A man driving a KIA van with an Iraqi accent came and said: 'I need labourers'. After the labourers got on and packed the vehicle he blew it up," said witness Nasir Faisal. "Four of my cousins were killed. They were standing beside the van. Their bodies were scattered far and wide by the blast."
Protesters gathered around the blackened mangle of vehicles. Blood-stained clothes lay amid the debris. "We want the Mehdi Army to protect us. We want Moqtada's army to protect us," screamed a woman dressed in a black abaya gown. Others chanted to the police: "You are traitors!" "You are not doing your job!" "American agents!" Police then fired automatic rifles into the air to disperse the crowds and confused scenes ensued. Some civilians, who appeared to be Sadr followers, were seen carrying weapons. A man with a bandage on his head in a Kufa hospital said: "Where are our human rights?"