A string of nearly a dozen apparently coordinated bombs and a shooting in cities across Iraq killed at least 32 and wounded dozens on Sunday, extending a wave of violence that is raising fears of a return to widespread killing a decade after the US-led invasion.
Violence has spiked sharply in Iraq in recent months, with the death toll rising to levels not seen since 2008. Nearly 2,000 have been killed since the start of April.
Most of the car bombs hit Shia-majority areas and were the cause of most of the casualties, killing 26. The blasts hit half a dozen cities and towns in the south and center of the country.
There was no claim of responsibility for any of the attacks, but they bore the hallmark of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which uses car bombs, suicide bombers and coordinated attacks to target security forces, members of Iraq's Shia majority, and others.
The blasts began when a parked car bomb went off early morning in the industrial area of the city of Kut, killing three people and wounding 14 others. That was followed by another car bomb outside the city targeted a gathering of construction workers that killed two and wounded 12, according to police.
In a teahouse hit by the blast, a blood-stained tribal headdress and slippers were strewn on the floor, along with overturned chair and couches. Kut is located 160 kms southeast of Baghdad.
In the oil-rich city of Basra by the Gulf coast in southern Iraq, a car bomb exploded in a busy downtown street, police said. As police and rescuers rushed to the scene of the initial blast, the second car exploded. A total of six people were reported killed. Cleaners were seen brushing off debris of the car bomb that damaged nearby cars and shops.
About an hour later, two parked car bombs ripped through two neighborhoods in Nasiriyah, 320 km southeast of Baghdad, killing one and wounding 17, another police officer said.
And in Mahmoudiya town, 30 km south of Baghdad, two civilians were killed and nine wounded when a car bomb went off in an open market.
In the Shia holy city of Najaf, 160 kms south of Baghdad, a blast struck a produce market, killing eight and wounding 28.
And in Madain, a roadside bomb and then a car bomb exploded, killing three and wounding 14. Madain is about 20 km southeast of Baghdad. Near Hillah, a car bomb exploded in a parking lot, killing one and wounding nine.
The shooting happened near the restive northern city of Mosul. Police officials say gunmen attacked police guarding a remote stretch of an oil pipeline, killing four and wounding five.
In the northern city of Tuz Khormato, a roadside bomb targeted a passing police patrol, killing two policemen and wounding another.