Dozens killed and injured in attacks across Iraq

More than 50 people have been killed and over 200 injured in a wave of bombing and shooting attacks across Iraq.

Thursday’s attacks unfolded over a two-and-a-half-hour period, and mainly targeted security forces and checkpoints in predominantly Shia areas, according to the BBC.

Most of the casualties were in the capital of Baghdad, with nine people dying in two successive blasts in the central Karrada district.

Militants also hit security patrols, government offices, restaurants and a school in 10 other cities, the Associated Press reported.

Six people died after a car bomb exploded in Shia-dominated Kadhimiya, north of the capital, while another six were killed by gunmen at a police checkpoint in Baghdad’s Sarafiya district.

Dozens more were killed and injured by explosions and gunmen in Baquba, al-Mansour, Dorat Abo Sheer, Saidiya, al-Madaen, Taji and Salahuddin.

In the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, a car bomb targeting an office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party of Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani wounded four, according to the Agence France Presse.

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There are fears that the death toll from Thursday’s attacks could rise. Attacks in Iraq have risen since the US pulled out of the country in December. At least 18 people died in a suicide attack near the Iraqi police academy in Baghdad last week.

Today was the deadliest day in the country since January 14, when a suicide bombing on the outskirts of the southern port of city of Basra killed 53 people.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for Thursday’s violence, though Al Qaeda said it was behind previous waves of attacks in December and January. 

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