An Iraqi policeman stands at the site of a car bomb attack in Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, yesterday.
BAGHDAD: Car bombs ripped through Baghdad cafes and markets while blasts and shootings struck elsewhere yesterday, killing 61 people as Iraqis marked the end of their deadliest Ramadan in years.
The attacks were the latest in spiralling violence that authorities have failed to stem, with the worst bloodshed in five years raising worries of a return to all-out Sunni-Shia sectarian conflict that killed tens of thousands in past years.
The latest violence comes just weeks after brazen assaults, claimed by an Al Qaeda front group, on prisons near Baghdad that freed hundreds of militants, which analysts warn could boost armed groups.
The violence followed major security operations against militants that officials hailed as having resulted in the killing and capture of many.
Overall, 16 car bombs and a series of shootings and other blasts killed 61 people and wounded more than 300 across the country yesterday, as Iraqis celebrated Eid Al Fitr holiday that follows the Holy month of Ramadan.
A spate of vehicles rigged with explosives were detonated in eight different neighbourhoods of Baghdad, in apparently coordinated strikes.
The blasts hit public markets, cafes, and restaurants, killing 32 people overall, while violence earlier yesterday killed two others in the capital, according to security and medical officials
At Baghdad’s Al Kindi hospital, medics treated a man, apparently a soldier, whose face, chest and arms were covered in blood.
Medics sprinted into the hospital pushing people on stretchers, one of them a blanket-swathed man whose eyes were closed. Another man ran behind the stretcher, weeping as it was wheeled into the hospital.
Outside, long lines of cars inched along Baghdad roads, held up by increased security measures that came too late for the dozens of victims.
Also yesterday, a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle near a police checkpoint in Tuz Khurmatu, north of the capital, killing nine people.
A car bomb in Kirkuk, also north of Baghdad, killed an engineer.
Two car bombs in the southern city of Nasiriyah killed four, while a car bomb in the shrine city of Karbala left five others dead.
Reuters
