Baghdad ? A suicide car bomber struck a busy Baghdad commercial district Monday, killing at least 21 people, setting vehicles on fire and damaging a nearby Sunni shrine, police and hospital officials said.

A young boy seeks shelter behind a soldier with the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne division after gunshots rang out at the scene where just a few minutes earlier a suicide car bomber blew himself up in a busy commercial district Monday in central Baghdad, killing 21 people.

The blast went off at 2 p.m. in the Sinak market area on the east side of the Tigris River, just as U.S. and Iranian diplomats were wrapping up a historic meeting aimed at ending the violence wracking the country.

Insurgents carried out several mortar and car bombing attacks throughout the capital Monday and even waged a lengthy gunbattle with police in broad daylight. The wave of violence, which killed 36 people across Baghdad, came despite a nearly 15-week-old U.S.-led security crackdown in the city.

Another 33 bullet-riddled bodies were found handcuffed, blindfolded and showing signs of torture in different parts of Baghdad, the apparent victims of ongoing sectarian violence.

The deadliest attack Monday was the car bombing in the Sinak district, near the Abdul-Qadir al-Gailani mosque.

AP Television News showed dozens of astonished people wandering among the scorched cars and debris that littered the scene. Firefighters in yellow helmets struggled to extinguish the fire as ambulances rushed to evacuate the wounded.

The television footage showed damage to the mosque’s minaret, while the cleric in charge of the Sunni shrine, Mahmoud al-Issawi, said the blast damaged the building’s dome as well.

“The enemies of Iraq are the only ones who benefit from this bombing. These enemies have targeted our homeland, religion and our brotherhood,” al-Issawi told Iraqiya TV.

The blast also wounded 66, including three traffic policemen.

Earlier Monday, a battle raged between militants and police in the alleys of another central Baghdad neighborhood after insurgents hijacked two minibuses and kidnapped at least 15 passengers, police said.

At least three policemen were killed and eight other people were wounded in the fighting, authorities said.