A huge explosion ripped through a crowded market close to the west Baghdad police headquarters today, killing at least 47 people in the deadliest single attack in the capital in six months. The U.S. army and Iraqi Interior Ministry said the blast was a car bomb attack on the police building in Haifa Street. The Health Ministry said 114 people wounded.

The Interior Ministry and witnesses said there may have been at least two simultaneous car bomb blasts. Witnesses said mortars may also have been fired at the same time. At the blast site, rescuers pulled bodies from mangled market stalls. The area was littered with shoes, clothes and body parts, as well as fruit and vegetables from the market. Bloodstained corpses lay on pavements strewn with chairs, glass and rubble from blown-out shop fronts. Smoke from blazing vehicles in the middle of the street billowed into the sky, as fire crews tried to douse the flames. A huge crater was punched into the road. Ambulances with sirens wailing ferried the dead and wounded to hospital as U.S. helicopters buzzed overhead.

In a separate attack in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, 12 policemen were killed and two wounded when gunmen opened fire on their minibus. Meanwhile, US attacks have continued on the Iraqi town of Tal Afar near the border with Syria. U.S. ground troops attacked the city and F-15 and F-16 jets dropped 500- and 2,000-pound bombs on one of the city’s main roads. Iraqi Health officials say that 42 Iraqis have been killed there since last Thursday, including a number of women and children.