Baghdad -- Two suicide car bombers ripped through the throngs that poured into Baghdad streets carrying the national flag aloft in a rare moment of shared joy after the national soccer team's surprise run to the Asian Cup final.
Police said at least 50 people were killed and 135 were injured in the blasts.
Celebratory gunfire after Iraq defeated South Korea, 4-3, on penalties in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, killed at least one more person and injured 17, police said.
The savagery of the attacks shocked even Baghdad's battle-hardened residents.
"These criminals don't want Iraqis to be happy," said Qais Mula, a grocery store owner who said several of his regular customers were killed in one of the blasts. "The flags fell with the dead bodies in a pool of blood."
In another reminder of Iraq's enduring divides, the largest Sunni Arab bloc suspended its participation in the Shiite Muslim-led government, complaining that its members have been sidelined.
After the game, thousands descended into the streets across the country, leaping on top of vehicles, dancing, spraying party foam and pointing their guns to the sky in celebration.
But less than two hours later, a bomber drove his explosives-laden car into the crowd celebrating outside a popular ice cream shop in Baghdad's Sunni-dominated western Mansour neighborhood, killing at least 30 people and injuring 75, police said.
Another bomber detonated his payload among revelers celebrating with soldiers from an Iraqi army checkpoint in Ghadeer, a Christian enclave in east Baghdad, killing 20 more people and injuring 60, police said.
Earlier yesterday, leaders of the Sunni bloc known as the Iraqi Accordance Front said they were giving Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a week to meet a list of demands, or else they would quit his Cabinet for good.
The demands include a general amnesty for detainees who have not been charged with specific crimes; respect for human rights, including an end to random arrests; the dismantling of private militias; inclusion of all communities in the government and security forces; and a serious effort to return those displaced by sectarian violence to their homes.
The Accordance Front's five ministers and Deputy Prime Minister Salam Zikam Ali Zubaie had been boycotting Cabinet meetings but would now stop coming to their offices, said Adnan Dulaimi, who heads the bloc.
Iran, meanwhile, signaled that it might consider talks with the United States at the level of deputy foreign minister after a testy meeting Tuesday between the two countries' envoys in Iraq.
"The issue can be considered if a formal request is received from the U.S. side," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted by the country's official news agency as telling reporters in Tehran.
A U.S. official said yesterday that talks had begun on the modalities of such a mechanism.
In other violence, police in Baghdad recovered the bodies of 18 gunshot victims, apparently victims of sectarian killings. Eight more bodies were recovered south of the capital, including a father and son found in their pickup truck behind a school in Iskandariya.
A bomb exploded in a minibus in the Shiite-dominated Shaab area in east Baghdad, killing three people and injuring two.
Six Iraqis were killed and eight wounded when U.S. and Iraqi forces, backed by helicopters, raided Sadr City, another Shiite district in the city, police said. U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Mark Fox told reporters that troops go to great lengths to avoid such casualties, which he blamed on militants who fight among civilians.
Alexandra Zavis writes for the Los Angeles Times.