Iraqi official escapes assassination as car bombings across country kill at least 58

The violence is the latest in months of unrelenting bloodshed, the country’s worst since 2008, that has sparked concern Iraq is slipping back into the all-out sectarian war.

The site of a bomb attack in Nasiriyah, 375 kilometres south of Baghdad. The attack was one of 14 bombings yesterday. Reuters

HILLA, IRAQ // Attacks across Iraq, including more than a dozen car bombs, killed at least 58 yesterday while the head of Baghdad’s provincial council escaped an assassination attempt on his convoy.

The violence was the latest in months of unrelenting bloodshed, the country’s worst since 2008, that has sparked concern Iraq is slipping back into the all-out sectarian war of years earlier that killed tens of thousands.

Authorities have imposed tough restrictions on movement and carried out wide-ranging operations against militants, but insurgents have pressed their attacks across the country.

Yesterday they struck in more than a dozen towns and cities with at least 14 car bombs, killing 39 people and wounding more than 100.

The deadliest violence was in the city of Hilla, the predominantly Shiite capital of Babil province south of Baghdad, where four car bombs killed 19 people, police and medics said.

“I saw many people with burns, and people who were on fire. They were screaming for help,” said Sajjad Al Amari, a 22-year-old witness to one car bombing on the outskirts of Hilla.

Another witness, Karrar Ahmed, said he saw “many shop owners who were thrown to the floor. Many were killed and wounded, and they were lying on the ground among the goods from their shops”.

Mr Ahmed, still shaking with nerves, said incompetence by the security forces had “cleared the way for terrorists to target, and kill, civilians”.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the violence, which largely struck majority Shiite areas. Sunni militants linked to Al Qaeda, however, often target Iraq’s Shiite majority, whose adherents they regard as apostates.

In Baghdad, meanwhile, a car bomb hit the convoy of Riyadh Al Adhadh, the chief of the provincial council and a Sunni politician from the party of the national parliament speaker.

Mr Al Adhadh was unharmed but two others, including one of his bodyguards, were killed and four people were wounded.

The blast shattered the windows of nearby shops and buildings, and security forces imposed a cordon around the area in the aftermath.

Just a day earlier, a suicide bomber at a funeral near Mosul, Iraq’s main northern city, killed 27 people and wounded dozens, and violence in the past week alone has claimed the lives of more than 150.

Authorities insisted a campaign targeting militants was yielding results, claiming to have captured hundreds of fighters and killed dozens. They said security forces had dismantled several insurgent training camps and bomb-making sites.

But the government has faced criticism for not doing more to defuse Sunni anger over alleged ill-treatment at the hands of the Shiite-led authorities.

Analysts and diplomats said militants had exploited this on the ground to recruit new fighters and carry out attacks.

The surge in violence comes as the government grapples with a prolonged political stalemate, with no significant legislation passed since the March 2010 parliamentary elections.

* Agence France-Presse