Iraqi Marketplace Bomb Kills 24

35 Others Are Injured, Dozens More Killed In Other Attacks

(CBS/AP)  A bomb blast Wednesday at Baghdad's largest and oldest wholesale market district killed at least 24 people and injured 35.

Police say the blast occurred at just before 10 a.m. at the Shurja commercial center. Shurja is one of Iraq's largest markets, where wholesalers sell food, clothing and house products to businessmen and shoppers.

Earlier, an explosives-rigged bicycle blew up near an army recruiting center in a city south of Baghdad Wednesday, killing at least 12 people.

The bombs comes a day after a grisly discovery: at least two dozen bodies found dumped in two Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad. Eleven of the bullet-riddled corpses, hands and legs bound, were found near a school in the Maalif section of the Iraqi capital. Thirteen other bodies were found behind a mosque, all, say police, dumped after being handcuffed, tortured and shot in the head.

In other developments:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday the world faces "a new type of fascism" and likened critics of the Bush administration's war strategy to those who tried to appease the Nazis in the 1930s. Speaking to several thousand veterans at the American Legion's national convention, Rumsfeld portrayed the administration's critics as suffering from "moral or intellectual confusion" about what threatens the nation's security.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office says 50 gunmen loyal to firebrand anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were killed in Monday's clashes in Diwaniyah with the Iraqi army, which lost 23 troops. Tuesday, the streets were calm, as a deal between Shiite militiamen and the Iraqi government ended a fierce 12-hour street battle. South of the city, however, at least 27 people were killed, in an oil pipeline explosion police suspect could have been caused by people siphoning out gasoline.

One of Iraq's deputy prime ministers said Tuesday that attacks overall are declining. Barham Salih acknowledged an uptick in violence in the past few days, but predicted that by the end of the year, half of the country's provinces will be controlled by Iraq's security forces.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, an architect of America's heavily criticized prisoner of war policy, met with Barham Saleh, Iraq's deputy prime minister, in Baghdad in a visit he said was to promote "the rule of law." He said that Iraq's future would depend on its enforcing the rule of law, but only its people and political leaders could decide what type of law that would be.

Four U.S. soldiers and one marine have died in Iraq, two in fighting in the restive Anbar province, one after being hit by a roadside bomb in Baghdad and two from non-hostile causes, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

The U.S. military also said that soldiers from the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, part of 12,000 additional troops brought into Baghdad to crack down on violence in the city, seized a weapons cache in a southern Baghdad school. Another unit helped free two Iraqi kidnap victims.

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©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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