Bombings Kill at Least 171 Iraqis in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, April 18 — Bombs ravaged Baghdad in five horrific explosions aimed mainly at Shiite crowds on Wednesday, killing at least 169 people in the deadliest day in the capital since the American-led security plan for the city took effect two months ago.

The wave of attacks, four of them involving car bombs, came as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki declared that the Iraqi government planned to take full control of security from the American-led forces before the end of the year.

In the worst of the bombings, a car packed with explosives exploded at an intersection in the Sadriya neighborhood that serves as a hub for buses traveling to the Shiite district of Sadr City. The blast killed at least 140 people and wounded 150; incinerated scores of vehicles, including several minibuses full of passengers; and charred nearby shops, witnesses and the police said.

Wednesday’s attacks risked reawakening the dormant Shiite militias, especially the Mahdi Army of the militant Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, and reigniting the cycles of sectarian violence that tormented Baghdad after the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the Sunni insurgency’s intent was to provoke a new wave of sectarian violence. “We can only hope that the Shia will have the confidence in their government and in the coalition that we’ll go after the people that perpetrated this horror,” he told reporters in Tel Aviv after meeting with Israeli defense minister, Amir Peretz.