IRAQ MORTAR BLITZ KILLS 154 BAGHDAD turned into a bloodbath yesterday with 154 people dead and more than 200 wounded.
A wave of suicide car bombs and mortar rounds caused mayhem on the streets of the Shia Sadr City slum quarter.
They were the deadliest co-ordinated attacks since the US-led war began in 2003.
And fears were growing that the Iraqi government would be unable to contain the backlash over the slaughter, blamed on Sunni Muslims.
The scale of the atrocity brought angry residents and Shia gunmen on to the streets hurling curses at Sunnis and firing into the air. The slum quarter is home to the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.
They are believed to have been behind the kidnap of scores of people in a raid on an education department staffed mainly by Sunnis on November 14.
Before the bombers struck, US and Iraqi forces searching for a kidnapped American soldier had swept through an area of Sadr City, killing four Iraqis.