(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - A series of bomb attacks across Iraq has killed at least 60 people which is mostly Shiite Muslims and wounded at least another 80, medical officials have confirmed.
In Baquba, there were reports of four bombings. Two are said to have targeted a Shia wedding, AFP news agency reports.
The blasts in Baghdad and the northern city of Baquba on Sunday were caused by car and roadside bombings, according to police and local officials.
The death toll was put at 46 or 47 by different police and hospital officials. The deadliest of the attacks took place in the centre of Baquba when a car bomb exploded outside an apartment block killing at least seven people, although some reports estimated up to 11 died in the blast. Another 34 people were wounded.
A second bombing in Baquba, close to a Shia wedding party convoy, killed four and wounded 17.
Iraqi authorities said there was a further bombing inside a coffee shop in Baghdad's Shaab neighbourhood, which killed three and wounded 16. There were reports that the car bomb exploded a center to perform exams belong to the Shiite Endowment in al-Ameen neighborhood of southeastern Baghdad killed three civilians and wounded 13 others.
Three other civilians were killed and six wounded when a bomb attached to a car exploded while passing through the capital's eastern Zayona neighbourhood, according to police. Another bomb went off in a commercial area in the western Ghazaliya area, killing two people and wounding seven others, officials said.
Iraqi authorities said a blast killed four and wounded 13 youths who were playing football in Madain, to the south of the Iraqi capital.
The Associated Press cited hospital officials, who confirmed the casualty figures on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to release the information. It also reported an unnamed police officer's claim of an attack near the northern city of Mosul, where militants reportedly set up a fake security checkpoint, captured five soldiers and shot them dead. He added that the soldiers were dressed in civilian clothes and returning to base in a taxi.
In Mosul, gunmen in a speeding car shot and killed a grocer, he said, though the motive was not immediately clear. The grocer was a member of the Shabak ethnic group, which has its own distinct language and religious beliefs.
Another police officer said a car bomb exploded as a judge drove past in the northern town of Balad, killed eight persons including four nurses and a man who had been walking nearby. Thirteen other people were wounded, including the judge, his brother and a driver, he added, while reports from Nineveh province says five soldiers died when their vehicle was fired on.
The bombings came after one of the worst spates of violence in Iraq, with more than 670 killed (mostly Shiite Muslims) during month of Ramadan, which ended in early August.
Reports have suggested that more than 3,000 people have been killed in the past few months, raising fears that Iraq could see a renewed wave of sectarian bloodshed, similar to that which brought the country close to civil war in 2006 and 2007.
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25 August 2013 - 19:30
News ID: 455603
A series of bomb attacks across Iraq has killed at least 60 people which is mostly Shiite Muslims and wounded at least another 80, medical officials have confirmed.
