At least seven Sunni mosques and dozens of shops in eastern Iraq were firebombed on Tuesday, security sources and local officials said, a day after 23 people were killed there in two blasts claimed by Islamic State.
Ten people were also shot and killed in Muqdadiya, 80 km northeast of Baghdad, security and hospital sources said.
At least two Sunni mosques south of Baghdad were attacked last week after a Shia cleric was executed in Saudi Arabia, triggering angry reactions in Iraq and neighboring Iran.
At the height of Iraq’s civil war nearly a decade ago, such mosque attacks often unleashed revenge killings and counter attacks across the country.
Officials tried on Tuesday to head off further violence, condemning the mosque attacks as well as Monday’s bombings which Islamic State said had targeted Shias.
Abdul Lateef al-Himayim, head of Iraq’s government body overseeing religious sites, called them “a desperate attempt to destroy Iraqi unity”, while the United Nations warned in a statement the mosque bombings could “take the country back into the dark days of sectarian strife”.
Haqqi al-Jabouri, a member of the local council in Diyala province where Muqdadiya is located, said both types of attacks hurt the social fabric of the community. He blamed “undisciplined (Shia) militias” for burning the mosques.
