DEADLY CAR BOMBS ROCK IRAQI CITIES KILLING AT LEAST 68 PEOPLE

     Baghdad, 11 Rajab 1434/21 May 2013 (MINA) – At least 68 people have been killed and 195 injured in a series of car bombs across Iraqi cities, police and medics say.

     Pushing the death toll over the past week to more than 200 and extending one of the most sustained bouts of sectarian violence the country has seen in years.

      The bloodshed is still far shy of the pace, scale and brutality of the dark days of 2006-2007, when armed groups carried out retaliatory attacks against each other in a cycle of violence that left the country awash in blood.

     Still, Monday’s attacks, some of which hit markets and crowded bus stops during the morning rush hour, have heightened fears that the country could be turning back down the path toward civil war.

     Sectarian tensions have been worsening since Iraq’s minority Sunnis began protesting what they say is mistreatment at the hands of the Shia-led government.

      The mass demonstrations, which began in December, have largely been peaceful, but the number of attacks rose sharply after a deadly security crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq on April 23.

      Iraq’s Shia majority, which was oppressed under the late dictator Saddam Hussein, now holds the levers of power in the country.

      But the renewed violence in both Shia and Sunni areas since late last month has fuelled concerns of a return to sectarian warfare.

      The worst of Monday’s violence took place in Baghdad, where ten car bombs ripped through open-air markets and other areas of Shia neighbourhoods, killing at least 47 people and wounding more than 150, police officials said, Al Jazeera quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

      In the bloodiest attack, a parked car bomb blew up in a busy market in the northern Shia neighbourhood of Shaab, killing 14 and wounding 24, police and health officials said.

      “How long do we have to continue living like this, with all the lies from the government?” asked 23-year-old Baghdad resident Malik Ibrahim.

      “Whenever they say they have reached a solution, the bombings come back stronger than before. We’re fed up with them and we can’t tolerate this anymore,” he added.

      The predominantly Shia city of Basra in southern Iraq was also hit Monday, with two car bombs there – one outside a restaurant and another at the city’s main bus station – killing at least 13 and wounded 40, according to the provincial police spokesperson.

      In the town of Balad, about 80km north of Baghdad, a car bomb exploded next to a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims, killing six Iranians and one Iraq and wounding nine people, a police officer said.

      There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks.

      Monday’s violence also struck Sunni areas, hitting the city of Samarra north of Baghdad and the western province of Anbar, a Sunni stronghold and the birthplace of the protest movement.

      A parked car bomb in Samarra went off near a gathering of pro-government Sunni armed group who were waiting outside a military base to receive salaries, killing three and wounding 13.

      While in Anbar armed men ambushed two police patrols near the town of Haditha, killing eight police officers, police and army officials said.

      Also in Anbar, authorities found 13 dead bodies in a remote desert area, officials said. The bodies, which included eight police officers who were kidnapped by armed men on Friday, had been killed with a gunshot to the head.

      The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media. (T/P09/E1).

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).