BAGHDAD, Iraq — A car bomb killed at least 10 people packed into a market today as an Iraqi government spokesman praised a decrease in attacks during a new security plan in the capital.

The car bomb hit midmorning in Baiyaa, one of Baghdad's most popular shopping districts in a mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhood. Hours after the blast, charred clothes hung from vendors' stalls.

Black smoke rose from the smoldering wreckage of at least four cars gutted by the explosion, and damage reached the second story of buildings nearby. Corrugated tin roofs were peeled back by the force of the blast.

Shop owner Imad Jassim ran out into the street when he heard the explosion.

"People were in a state of panic. There was a lot of blood on the ground and we helped carrying the wounded to the ambulances," Jassim said. "The terrorists behind this massacre want to paralyze life in Baghdad by attacking markets and public crowds."

At Yarmouk Hospital nearby, some of the 20 wounded were wheeled outside on gurneys attached to IV bags. The dead bodies of at least three women were shrouded by their black abayas, or traditional Islamic coverings.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Intelligence reports indicated Taliban militants had the ability to set off suicide attacks in the Bagram area even before a bombing that killed 23 people during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, a NATO spokesman said today.Militants have suicide bomb cells in Kabul, just 30 miles south of the large U.S. military base at Bagram, said Col. Tom Collins, the top spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force."We know for a fact that there has been recent intelligence to suggest that there was the threat of a bombing in the Bagram area," Collins said.