Residents gather at the scene of a bomb attack in Baghdad yesterday. At least 25 people were killed and 60 wounded when a car bomb exploded near a popular market in Amil district in southwestern Baghdad, police said. - Reuters

BAGHDAD,(Reuters):

A car bomb in a busy Baghdad market killed 25 people and wounded 60 yesterday, while Parliament adjourned without any action on constitutional reforms aimed at stopping sectarian violence.

The bombing at a popular outdoor market in southwestern Amil was Baghdad's worst car bombing since 35 people died on May 6 in nearby Bayaa, another Shi'ite district repeatedly targeted in attacks blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaida.

Thousands of extra U.S. and Iraqi troops have been deployed around Baghdad and other areas in a three-month-old security crackdown aimed at dragging Iraq back from the brink of sectarian civil war.

U.S. President George W. Bush is under pressure from his Republican Party to show progress in Iraq by September, but at the same time has rejected timetables for a U.S. pullout proposed by Democrats.

Progress report

General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, will deliver a progress report on the build-up in September.

"I see it as an important moment, because David Petraeus says that's when he'll have a pretty good assessment as to what the effects of the surge has been," Bush told Reutersin Washington.

The security crackdown is meant to buy time for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government to meet a series of political targets set by Washington.

Parliament sat yesterday but was adjourned without addressing the constitutional reforms, which include a crucial revenue-sharing oil law and a law that would allow former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party to hold public office.