BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- At least 40 people were killed and nearly 100 wounded in a string of bombings in central Baghdad around midday on Monday, police said.

An Interior Ministry official provided a higher toll, saying the blasts had killed at least 45 and wounded at least 150.
One of the explosions was caused by a massive car bomb in a marketplace in the Bab al-Sharji commercial district of central Baghdad.

Baghdad marketplaces have been a popular target for insurgents.
The market blast sent a dense black plume of smoke into the midday air and occurred at the end of a 15-minute commemoration marking the year anniversary, on the Islamic calendar, of the February bombing of Askariya Mosque, the revered Shiite shrine in Samarra also known as the Golden Mosque.

The Samarra bombing is blamed for the eruption over the past year of sectarian violence between Shiite and Sunni Arabs.
Monday is the 23rd of Muharram on the Islamic calendar. On the Gregorian calendar, the anniversary takes place on February 22.
Several hours earlier, two people were killed and three wounded when a roadside bomb hit a civilian car in northern Baghdad's Qahira neighborhood, police said.

The attack took place at 8:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m. ET)
Security sweep to shut down 10 areas of Baghdad
The plan to secure Iraq's capital will move to a higher level this week when Iraqi army and police forces close down 10 areas of Baghdad, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Sunday.
Those areas will be shut down to root out terrorists and their weapons, the prime minister said, and to secure homes and buildings which people have been forced to leave.
Al-Maliki expressed confidence in the security plan, which will be supported by U.S. forces, and repeated that the operation will deal with all outlaws in the same manner, regardless of their affiliation.

Some had predicted that followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia -- which has been blamed for much of the sectarian violence in Iraq -- would be overlooked in the security crackdown, since the al-Sadr movement has backed al-Maliki.
But the arrest Thursday of Deputy Health Minister Hakem Abbas al-Zamili, who is linked to al-Sadr's group, appeared to signal al-Maliki's tough stance.

The raid in which al-Zamili was detained was conducted by special Iraqi army forces backed by U.S. advisers.
The deputy minister is accused of corruption and of being implicated in the deaths of other employees of the Ministry of Health, according to U.S. officials.
Other developments

Calling them "all lies," an Iranian Embassy official Monday denied U.S. allegations that an elite Iranian force under the command of Iran's supreme leader is behind bombings that have killed coalition forces in Iraq.

A U.S. soldier died in Iraq in a non-combat related incident Sunday, a U.S. military statement released Monday said. According to the military, the soldier was assigned to the Army's Multi-National Corps-Iraq. The death brought to 3,116 the number of U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war. Seven American civilian contractors of the military also have died in the conflict.

U.S. and Iraqi forces waged a fierce fight Sunday against insurgents who claim control of a small town north of Baghdad where al Qaeda forces raised their flag at the police station at the end of December.

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