Car bomb explodes as Sunni worshippers leave mosque in Iraq
BAGHDAD ( AP) — A car bomb exploded as Sunni worshippers were leaving a mosque after evening prayers Tuesday in Baghdad, the deadliest in a string of attacks that killed at least 20 people nationwide in a week of the most sustained sectarian violence in the country since U.S. troops withdrew more than a year ago.
Rising tensions between Sunnis and the Shiite-led government have burst into a new round of bloodshed with 279 people killed since last week and scenes reminiscent of some of the worst carnage during the days when the two Islamic sects battled each other as well as U.S.led forces in the chaotic years after Saddam Hussein’s ouster.
The violence has raised fears the country is sliding back to the brink of civil war amid rising Sunni anger over perceived mistreatment at the hands of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government and dangerous spillover from Syria’s civil war next door, which pits mainly Sunni rebels against Syrian President Bashar Assad, a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters in Washington that the U.S. administration was “deeply concerned by the frequency and the nature of recent attacks.” U.S. officials in Baghdad and Washington were in contact with a wide range of senior Iraqi leaders “to urge calm and help resolve ongoing political and sectarian tensions,” he said Monday.
The explosion targeting the worshippers occurred in the western neighbourhood of Abu Ghraib, the site of the infamous prison of the same name, killing 10 people and wounding 21, according to police and hospital officials. A bomb also targeted a tea house in Baghdad’s mainly Sunni southern Dora neighbourhood, killing three people and wounding 14, two police officers and a medical official said.
Several smaller attacks struck areas elsewhere in the country earlier Tuesday.
A suicide bomber set off his explosives-laden vest at a military checkpoint in the town of Tarmiyah, 50 kilometres ( 30 miles) north of Baghdad.