More than 40 people were killed in bomb attacks in Iraq on Wednesday morning, including 24 at a busy market in Baghdad where insurgents seem intent on defying amajor U.S.-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.