Car bomb blasts in Baghdad, Iraqi town claim 24 lives

Car bomb blasts hit several mostly Shia neighbourhoods of Baghdad and a town south of the Iraqi capital on Wednesday, killing at least 21 people and wounding dozens, officials said, the latest bout of violence ahead of Iraq’s first parliament elections since the 2011 US troop withdrawal. 

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks but the bombings bore the hallmarks of an al-Qaida-inspired group and other Sunni insurgents, who frequently use suicide and car bombs to target public areas and government buildings in their bid to undermine confidence in the Shia-led government. 

The explosions also coincided with the anniversary of the 2003 fall of Baghdad in the hands of US troops. 

The deadliest of the day’s attacks took place in the town of Numaniyah, about 80 kilometres south of Baghdad, where a bomb blast first went off in a busy commercial area, followed by a car bomb blast that exploded as people gathered to help the victims from the first blast. In all, five people were killed and 17 were wounded, police said. Earlier in the day, a car bomb blast in Baghdad’s central Nidhal Street killed four people and wounded 11, while three people died and nine were wounded in a car bombing in the northern Kazimiyah district. Car bomb blasts also exploded in the areas of Shaab, Shammaiya, Karrada and Maamil, killing a total of seven people and wounding 30, police officials added. 

Medical officials confirmed the causality figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Violence has surged in Iraq since last year, with the country weathering its deadliest bout of violence since it pulled back from the brink of civil war in 2008. UN figures showed that last year, Iraq saw the highest death toll in attacks, with 8,868 people killed.