Bomb attacks on Iraqi soldiers, Shi'ites kill 49 <http://www.reuters.com/> Description: ReutersReuters 43 minutes ago
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Ten cars rigged with explosives blew up in predominantly
Shi'ite Muslim areas in and around Baghdad on Sunday, and a suicide bomber
attacked soldiers queuing up for their pay in northern Iraq, killing 49
people in total, police said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for any of the blasts, but
Shi'ites are seen as apostates by hardline Sunni Islamists linked with al
Qaeda, which has been regaining momentum this year.
Soldiers and security personnel are also prime targets for Sunni militants
seeking to destabilize Iraq's Shi'ite-led government.
Sunday's deadliest attack took place in the northern city of Mosul, when a
man driving a car blew himself up outside a government bank where soldiers
were waiting to collect their salaries, police said. Twelve people were
killed.
A further 37 people died in apparently coordinated blasts in and around
Baghdad. In the worst of those, two car bombs exploded moments apart near a
busy market in the town of Nahrawan, south of the capital, killing seven.
"I was eating my breakfast when a powerful blast shook the building,
shattering the window of my apartment and covering the dining table with
pieces of glass," said Suad Ahmed, a woman living in Baladiyat, where
another car bomb killed three people.
"I was terrified, I heard women and children shouting next door. I started
to cry. I was afraid of death."
Al Qaeda was forced underground in 2007 and violence eased in the following
years, but is now on the rise again, with around 3,000 civilians killed so
far this year, according to monitoring group Iraq Body Count.
Insurgents have exploited growing anger among Iraq's Sunni minority, which
complains it has been marginalized under the Shi'ite-led government that
came to power following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
A raid on a Sunni protest camp in April touched off a violent backlash by
militants that is still ongoing.
Relations between Islam's two main denominations have come under further
strain from the civil war in neighboring Syria, which has drawn Sunnis and
Shi'ites from Iraq and the wider region into battle.
Al Qaeda's Syrian and Iraqi affiliates merged earlier this year to form The
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, which has claimed responsibility for
attacks on both sides of the border.
(Reporting by Kareem Raheem in Baghdad and Ziad al-Sinjary in Mosul; Writing
by Ahmed Rasheed and Isabel Coles; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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