Baghdad: Bombs striking Shiite neighbourhoods, security forces and other targets across Iraq on Sunday killed at least 23 people, officials said.
It was the latest instance in which insurgents launched coordinate attacks in multiple cities across the country in a single day.
The deadliest attack came in the town of Taji, a former al-Qaida stronghold just north of Baghdad, where three explosive-rigged cars went off within minutes of each other. Police said eight people died and 28 were injured in the back-to-back blasts that began around 7:15 am. I
In all, at least 82 people were wounded in the wave of attacks that stretched from the restive but oil-rich city of Kirkuk in Iraq’s north to the southern Shiite town of Kut. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the violence, but car bombs are a hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq.
The militant network has vowed to take back areas of the country, like Taji, from which the Sunni insurgent network was pushed before US troops withdrew last December. Shortly after the Taji attacks, police said a suicide bomber set off his explosives-packed car in the Shiite neighbourhood of Shula in northwest Baghdad. One person was killed and seven wounded.
Police could not immediately identify the target. Within an hour, another suicide drove a minibus into a security checkpoint in Kut, southeast of Baghdad.
Three police officers were killed and five wounded, Maj Gen Hussein Abdul-Hadi Mahbob said. (AP)