Civilians sift through rubble and stand in the ruins of a home after a car bomb attack in the Shula neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2014. Car bombs and a shooting, mainly in Shiite areas, killed and wounded scores of people in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday, officials said, as authorities released a rare photograph of a man they say is the leader of al-Qaida’s local branch. Since late December, members of Iraq’s al-Qaida branch have taken over parts of Ramadi, capital of the largely Sunni province of Anbar. They also control the center of the nearby city of Fallujah. Government forces and allied tribes have been trying to wrest control back from the militants. (AP photo by Karim Kadim)
A wave of explosions rocked mainly Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad shortly after sunset on Monday, killing at least 23 people and wounding dozens, officials said.
The attacks, three carried out by parked explosives-laden cars and one by a separate bomb, hit crowded commercial areas near Shiite mosques.
The deadliest took place in the eastern Ur neighborhood where a car bombing killed at least 10 people and wounded 23 others, police said.
Another car exploded in the central Karrada area, killing eight people and wounding 25 others, police added. And one civilian was killed and seven were wounded in another explosion in the southwestern Amil neighborhood.
In the western Sunni neighborhood of Ghazaliyah, another car bomb ripped through a commercial area, killing four civilians and wounding 11 others, police said.
Two medical officials confirmed the causality figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but they bear the hallmarks of Sunni terrorist seeking to undermine confidence in Shiite-led Government efforts to maintain security nationwide. An al-Qaida breakaway group, known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, has been behind similar attacks in the past.
Iraq is experiencing a resurgence of violence to levels not seen since the worst of the country’s sectarian bloodletting began to subside in 2007.
(Associated Press)
