BAGHDAD: A series of evening car bombs targeting commercial neighbourhoods of Iraq’s capital killed at least nine people yesterday, security and medical officials said.
The five blasts also wounded dozens, the latest in a months-long surge in bloodshed that has hit the country with less than two months left before national parliamentary elections.
The attacks, all car bombs at markets or commercial shopping areas of the Sadr City, Amil, Amin, Shuala and Qahira neighbourhoods, killed nine people in all, said police and medical sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.
More than 30 people were wounded, they said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bloodshed, but Sunni militants, including those linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant jihadist group, are often blamed for carrying out coordinated mass-casualty bombings. Elsewhere in Iraq yesterday, a gun attack on the outskirts of the confessionally mixed city of Baquba killed a mother and her son, while a car bomb in the predominantly Sunni city of Tikrit near the home of a police colonel wounded 15 people.
More than 230 people have been killed already this month, according to an AFP tally. Iraq is grappling with its worst prolonged period of violence since it emerged from a bloody sectarian war that left tens of thousands dead in 2006-07. AFP
