Sectarian violence kills 86 in Baghdad

BAGHDAD— Aseries of attacks across Baghdad and elsewhere onWednesday killed 86 people and wounded 263, police and medical sources said, extending the worst wave of sectarian bloodshed in Iraq in at least five years.

It was not clear who carried out the attacks, which appeared coordinated, but Sunni Muslim insurgents including the alQaida- affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have significantly stepped up bombings this year.

More than two years of civil war in neighboring Syria have aggravated deep- rooted sectarian divisions in Iraq, fraying the country’s uneasy coalition of Shiite Muslim, Sunni Muslim and Kurdish factions.

In Sadr City, an impoverished Shiite district in Baghdad’s northeast, two car bombs killed seven people.

A restaurant owner said he saw an attacker before one of the explosions.

“A man parked his car in front of the restaurant. He got breakfast and drank his tea. ( Then) I heard a huge explosion when I was inside the kitchen,” said the owner, who requested anonymity.

“When I went outside, I saw his car completely destroyed, and he had disappeared. Many people were hurt.”

Car bombs hit south, north and western Baghdad early in the day and late in the evening in a cluster of attacks that targeted Shiite and Sunni areas of the capital.

The Interior Ministry described the attacks as “terrorist explosions” and said the number of people killed was 20, with 213 wounded. The Shiite- led Baghdad government has said that media reports exaggerate attacks and that security forces have stopped many attempted bombings.

After years of reduced violence, the intensity of attacks has dramatically risen since the start of 2013.

Bombings have often targeted cafes and other places where families gather, as well as military facilities and checkpoints.

More than 1,000 Iraqis were killed in July, the highest monthly death toll since 2008, according to theUnitedNations.

The violence has stirred anxiety about a relapse toward the sectarian bloodshed of 2006- 07.

In other attacks Wednesday, gunmen killed six members of Sahwa — former Sunni insurgents who rebelled against alQaida— in an ambush on a checkpoint in Latifiyah, a suburb 25 miles south of Baghdad.

Gunmen also stormed a Shiite home in the same area, killing six family members, police and medical sources said.

In Kazimiyah, neighborhood in northwestern Baghdad, two roadside bombs and one car bomb killed five people and wounded nearly 30, the sources said.

Four soldierswere killed and five were wounded in Madain, southeast ofBaghdad, by a roadside bomb that targeted an Iraqi army patrol, police and medics said.