Four bombs in mainly Shia Muslim areas in Iraq’s capital Baghdad killed at least 25 people and wounded dozens of others on Thursday, police and hospital sources said.
Fears are escalating of increased sectarian strife after Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sought the removal of two senior Sunni politicians just as U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq – the worst political crisis in a year.
In Baghdad’s northwestern Kadhimiya district, two car bombs killed at least 15 people and wounded 32 others, the sources said.
Another two bombs, one planted on a parked motorcycle and another, also a roadside device, killed at least 10 people and wounded 37 others in the impoverished Sadr City district in northeastern Baghdad, they said.
“There was a group of day labourers gathered, waiting to be hired for work. Someone brought his small motorcycle and parked it nearby. A few minutes later it blew up, killed some people, wounded others and burned some cars,” said a police officer at the scene, declining to be named.
A Reuters reporter said there were blood stains all around the site of the motorcycle bomb attack and that tarmac on the road had been ripped up by the explosion. Building tools and shoes were scattered across the site.
Police said they found and defused two other bombs.
