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Parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni, said the massacre targeted poor people who were trying to feed their families, "turning them into pieces of flesh."

"God's curse upon those who are behind this," he said in a speech to lawmakers.

He urged the deeply divided legislature of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds "to find a solution" to Iraq's many problems.

Tayaran Square is located near several government ministries and a bridge that crosses the Tigris River to the heavily fortified Green Zone, where Iraq's parliament and the US and British embassies are located.

About a mile away, two roadside bombs targeting Iraqi police patrols exploded at 8:25 a.m. and 8:40 a.m., wounding two policemen and seven Iraqi civilians, said police Capt. Mohammed Abdul-Ghani.

On Monday, at least 66 people were killed or found dead in the Baghdad area and northern Iraq. They included 46 men who were bound, blindfolded and shot to death in the capital - the latest apparent victims of sectarian death squads.

A Marine helicopter also made a hard landing in a remote desert area of Anbar province, injuring 18 people, the third US aircraft to go down in the insurgent stronghold in two weeks.

The US military announced that three American soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing north of the capital on Sunday, putting December on track to be one of the deadliest months of the war. At least 2,934 members of the US military have died since the US-led invasion in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The military relies heavily on air travel to transport troops and ferry officials and journalists to remote locations and to avoid the dangers of roadside bombs planted by insurgents.

The CH-53E Super Stallion, the US military's largest helicopter, was conducting a routine passenger and cargo flight with 21 people on board when it went down about noon Monday, the US command said, adding that hostile fire did not appear to be the cause.

Nine of the 18 injured were treated and returned to duty, it said. The military did not give the exact location where the hard landing occurred, saying recovery efforts were under way.

On Dec. 3, a Sea Knight helicopter carrying 16 US troops went down in a lake, killing four. On Nov. 27, a US Air Force fighter jet crashed in a field, killing the pilot. Both took place in Anbar, a volatile Sunni-dominated province west of Baghdad that is the size of North Carolina.

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