A bomb in a parked car ripped through the poor mostly Shi'ite district of Shula in northwest Baghdad on Wednesday, killing 35 people and wounding 72 others near a popular restaurant, police said.
The U.S. military said 13 people were killed, and the director of Baghdad's hospitals put the death toll at 26 with 38 wounded, adding that women and children were among those caught in the blast.
Shula was also targeted by bombers on December 25 last year, killing four people.
Security has broadly improved since the height of the sectarian violence but a rash of bombings in April made it the deadliest month for civilians since November.
The last large-scale bomb attack in Iraq was on April 29, when 51 people were killed in twin car bomb attacks in the Shi'ite Sadr City district of Baghdad.
PHOTO CAPTION
People gather at the site of a car bomb explosion in Shula, Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, May 21, 2009.
Agencies