BAGHDAD -- A sedan driven by a suicide bomber exploded in the marketplace of Dujail, north of Baghdad, Friday night, killing at least 27 and wounding 40, Iraqi police said.
The bomber appeared to be targeting the police station, but he struck at dusk, when the marketplace was full of shoppers preparing to break Ramadan fast. Many of the casualties were women and children.
Assassins tried to kill Saddam Hussein in Dujail in 1982. In retaliation, he destroyed buildings and orchards, deported much of the population and executed 148 men from the mainly Shiite village, crimes for which he himself was later executed.
(Spangler reports for The Miami Herald. Hammoudi is a McClatchy Special Correspondent in Baghdad.)
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