A series of attacks targeting public places and Shiite militia checkpoints in and north of Iraq’s capital killed 37 people Saturday, authorities said.
The first bombs exploded near the market in Balad Ruz, killing 11 people and wounding 50.
Two suicide car bombers later attacked checkpoints manned by Shiite militiamen near the city of Samarra, killing 16 Shiite fighters and wounding 31, authorities said. A bomb killed four people in Baghdad, while another killed three people and wounding eight.
Four mortar shells also hit homes in Sabaa al-Bour, just north of Baghdad, killing three people.
Samarra and surrounding areas have been under constant attacks by the Islamic State group, which holds about a third of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in its self-declared caliphate. Clashes between Iraqi security forces and Islamic State militants followed the attack around Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.
Iraq’s interior ministry later said Iraqi border guards repelled an attack by Islamic State militants on a post on the Iraqi-Saudi border, saying several militants were killed.
Meanwhile in Baghdad, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi vowed to track down and punish those who smashed rare relics in the northern city of Mosul.
