Ellington

Rory Carroll reports from Iraq:

A car bomb tore into a crowd of laborers in central Baghdad Wednesday, killing at least 88 in Iraq's worst single attack since February. A fireball engulfed men who gathered in Khadhimiya, a poor Shiite district with high unemployment, hoping for a day's work gardening or building. Police at the scene said the bomb was detonated remotely, but some survivors claimed a suicide bomber had lured a crowd to his minivan.

It was the bloodiest attack in a wave of bombings and shootings Wednesday that left more than 150 people dead and 500 wounded. More than a dozen bombs shook the capital in a series of apparently coordinated blasts that started at dawn with the slaughter in Khadhimiya.