Shias under attack in Iraq, Pak

26 killed in car blasts across Baghdad

Several car bombs exploded in Shia Muslim neighbourhoods across Iraq’s capital Baghdad on Sunday morning, killing at least 26 people in blasts that tore into shops, restaurants and busy commercial streets.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks but Sunni Muslim insurgents have stepped up their operations since the beginning of the year in a bid to undermine the Shia-led government and trigger deeper intercommunal fighting.

One blast tore off shop fronts in Qaiyara district while another left the remains of a car and its twisted engine littered across a high street in the busy, commercial Karrada district packed with restaurants and shops.

“I was buying an air conditioner and suddenly there was an explosion. I threw myself on the ground. Minutes later I saw many people around, some of them dead, others wounded,” said Habibiya district salesman Jumaa Kareem, his jacket spattered with blood.

Sunday’s blasts followed the assassination of a senior Iraqi army intelligence officer on Saturday, the latest in a wave of suicide bombings since January. No one claimed responsibility for that attack.

Many Iraq Sunnis feel they have been sidelined and unfairly targeted by security forces since the fall of Saddam Hussein and the rise of the country’s Shia majority through the ballot box.