Baghdad blasts kill 57 as Iraq tensions rise

BAGHDAD, (Reuters) – A rash of bombings hit Baghdad  today, killing at least 57 people in the first big attack  on Iraq’s capital since a crisis between its Shi’ite Muslim-led  government and Sunni rivals erupted days after the U.S. troop  withdrawal.
The apparently coordinated bombings were the first sign of  rising violence after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki moved to  sideline two Sunni Muslim leaders, just a few years after  sectarian bloodletting drove Iraq to the edge of civil war.
At least 18 people were killed when a suicide bomber driving  an ambulance detonated the vehicle near a government office in  the Karrada district, sending up a dust cloud and scattering car  parts into a kindergarten, police and health officials said.
“We heard the sound of a car driving, then car brakes, then  a huge explosion, all our windows and doors are blown out, black  smoke filled our apartment,” said Maysoun Kamal, who lives in a  Karrada compound.
In total at least 57 people were killed and 179 were wounded  in more than ten explosions in Baghdad, an Iraqi health ministry  spokesman said.
Two roadside bombs struck the southwestern Amil district,  killing at least seven people and wounding 21 others, while a  car bomb blew up in a Shi’ite neighbourhood in Doura in the  south, killing three people and wounding six, police said.
More bombs ripped into the central Alawi area, Shaab and  Shula in the north, all mainly Shi’ite areas, and a roadside  bomb killed one and wounded five near the Sunni neighbourhood of  Adhamiya, police said.
Violence in Iraq has ebbed since the height of sectarian  violence in 2006-2007, when suicide bombers and hit squads  targeted Sunni and Shi’ite communities in attacks that killed  thousands of people.
Iraq is still fighting a stubborn, lower-grade insurgency  with Sunni Islamists tied to al Qaeda and Shi’ite militias, who  U.S. officials say are backed by Iran, still staging daily  attacks.
The last few thousand American troops pulled out of Iraq  over the weekend, nearly nine years after the invasion that  toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein. Many Iraqis had said they  feared a return to sectarian violence without a U.S. military  buffer.
Just days after the withdrawal, Iraq’s fragile power-sharing  government is grappling with its worst turmoil since its  formation a year ago. Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs share out  government posts in a unwieldy system that has been impaired by  political infighting since it began.
Maliki this week sought the arrest of Sunni Vice President  Tareq al-Hashemi on charges he organised assassinations and  bombings, and he asked parliament to fire his Sunni deputy Saleh  al-Mutlaq after he likened Maliki to Saddam.
The moves against the senior Sunni leaders are stirring  sectarian tensions because Sunnis fear the prime minister wants  to consolidate Shi’ite control.