Market Bombing Kills 35

At least 35 people died and 71 were wounded in a rare car bombing at an outdoor food market near the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah on Wednesday. Several officials expected the death toll to rise. The New York Times reports that this bombing was the first to target civilians in the predominantly Shiite city in the last two years. The bomb, stashed in an illegally parked car, detonated at 9 a.m. when shoppers "would normally have been women with young children," according to the Times. A provincial official blamed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, although no group has yet claimed credit for the attack.