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Many killed in Baghdad bombings Many killed in Baghdad bombings
(about 2 hours later)
At least 23 people have been killed and dozens more wounded in a string of bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, police have said. At least 28 people have been killed and more than 70 injured in a string of bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, police have said.
Police said a car bomb followed by a roadside bomb killed 10 people and wounded 22 in the busy Karrada shopping district of the centre of the capital. Twelve died in a car-bomb attack in the south of the city, shortly before the Iftar meal, when Muslims break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
Earlier they reported two bombs killed 13 people in other districts. Two further bombings struck the Karrada district later in the evening, leaving at least 15 people dead and 50 wounded.
The blasts occurred before the breaking of the fast for the evening meal during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Another person died in a car bomb earlier in the day in western Baghdad.
US military officials say violence in Iraq is at four-year low, but some militant groups appear to have stepped up attacks during Ramadan.
Shoppers targeted
The first major bomb, planted inside a minibus, exploded late in the afternoon in the Shurta neighbourhood of south Baghdad, as people were out shopping for food for Iftar. At least 12 people were killed and 20 wounded, police said.
At about the same time, another car bomb exploded in the car park of a market in the nearby Hay al-Amil district, killing one person.
Sometime after the Iftar meal had ended, a third car bomb and a roadside bomb struck in a busy part of Karrada, where many people were buying gifts and food ahead of a six-day public holiday beginning on Tuesday with the feast day of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan.
"The insurgents... [want] to show there is no security in Baghdad," an Iraqi government security spokesman, Qassim Moussawi, told the Reuters news agency, adding that their attacks were hard to stop.
The Iraqi army says violence in the capital has spiked in the past two weeks.
There have been several car bombs in the city centre and violent attacks elsewhere in the country too, the BBC's Hugh Sykes says.
At least eight children have been killed, and 35 members of a joint police-Sunni Arab Awakening movement patrol died last week when they were shot in an ambush in a village near Baquba, in Diyala Province, known to be a stronghold of al-Qaeda in Iraq.