Three explosions in Baghdad, including one opposite the foreign ministry, killed 24 people on Wednesday, the latest in the country’s worst surge of violence in nearly six years.
The attacks, which wounded dozens more, come as security forces battle militants in the western Anbar province, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a powerful jihadist group that has exploited the chaos in neighbouring Syria.
With violence at its highest level since 2008, diplomats have urged the Shiite-led government to reach out to Sunnis in order to undercut support for militancy, but Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has taken a hard line ahead of April’s parliamentary elections.
Wednesday’s bombings, including a suicide attack, ripped through confessionally-mixed areas of the Iraqi capital during morning rush-hour, killing at least 24 people and leaving 30 others wounded, security officials and a medical source said.
Among the attacks was a blast just opposite the foreign ministry on the edge of the heavily-fortified Green Zone, home to parliament and the US embassy.
Two security officials said the blast was caused by a car bomb, but witnesses at the scene said a suicide bomber had carried out the attack.
A suicide bomber also hit a restaurant, while a vehicle rigged with explosives was detonated in a market for car spare parts.
The toll could have been higher still, but security forces managed to defuse a roadside bomb near the oil ministry in central Baghdad.
Blood and pieces of flesh littered the scene at the restaurant attack.
Soldiers said one of their comrades had wrapped his arms around the bomber in a bid to save others.
The area surrounding the foreign ministry in central Baghdad has been hit by explosions in the past, notably in August 2009 when a massive truck bomb devastated the building, and again ahead of an Arab summit in the Iraqi capital in 2012.