Your daily bomb

“[M]any parts of Iraq are stable now. But, of course, what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everybody.” - Laura Bush, first lady of the propaganda

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide car bomb devastated Baghdad's historic booksellers' district on Monday, killing up to 26 people and setting shops and cars ablaze, sending a thick plume of choking black smoke over the city. [...]

As firefighters doused the flames which reached up to the third storey of some buildings, papers and book pages fluttered on the ground, some blackened, others bloody. Charred bodies lay almost unrecognizable, half buried in the rubble of shopfronts.

The bomb exploded around 50 meters (yards) from the Shah Bander cafe, a beacon of Baghdad's once thriving literary life.