More than 40 people were killed in bomb attacks in Iraq yesterday morning, including 24 at a busy market in Baghdad where insurgents seem intent on defying a major US-backed security clampdown now in its fourth week.

A further 35 people were wounded in the attack on the Shorja wholesale market in downtown, police said. A bomb in nearby Karrada killed two people around the same time. Several attacks in recent days have shattered a relative calm this past month.

Three hours earlier, a bomb apparently left on a parked bicycle blasted a crowd of young Iraqi men outside an army recruiting office, killing 12 people and wounding 38.

It went off around 0400 GMT, when a crowd had gathered. It followed several days of heavy bloodshed outside the capital, where US and Iraq troops have mounted a major security crackdown.