More than a dozen car bombs and suicide blasts tore through Shiite Muslim districts in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and other areas on Tuesday, killing nearly 60 people on the 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
Sunni Islamist insurgents linked to Al Qaeda are regaining ground in Iraq, invigorated by the war in Syria and have stepped up attacks on Shiite targets in an attempt to provoke a wider sectarian confrontation.
One car bomb exploded in a busy Baghdad market, three detonated in the Shiite district of Sadr City and another near the entrance of the heavily fortified Green Zone that sent a plume of dark smoke into the air alongside the River Tigris.
A suicide bomber in a truck attacked a police base in a Shiite town south of the capital, and another blew himself up inside a restaurant to target a police major in the northern city of Mosul.
The Iraq war began shortly before dawn in Baghdad on Thursday, March 20, 2003, with US air strikes on the capital. Shortly afterwards, President George W. Bush, addressing Americans on television late on March 19 US time, said the offensive was under way.
Now a decade after US and Western troops swept Saddam from power, Iraq still struggles with insurgents, sectarian friction and political feuds among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish factions who share power in the government of Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
In a sign of concern over security, the cabinet on Tuesday postponed local elections in two provinces, Anbar and Nineveh, for up to six months because of threats to electoral workers and violence there, according to Maliki's media adviser Ali al-Moussawi. The polls will go ahead elsewhere on April 20.
No group claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attacks, but Islamic State of Iraq, a wing of Al Qaeda, has vowed to take back ground lost in its war with US troops. This year the group has carried out a string of high-profile attacks.
Thousands of Sunni protesters are also rallying in Anbar against Maliki, whose Shiite-led government they accuse of marginalizing their minority sect since the fall of Sunni strongman Saddam.
Reuters