Residents stand among debris at one of the scenes of car bomb attacks that struck Baghdad
Reuters/Baghdad
At least 27 people were killed in a wave of bombings in mostly Shia Muslim areas of Baghdad on Saturday, police and medics said, in the deadliest day of attacks in the capital since a Sunni insurgency overran large parts of Iraq's north last month.
In the first explosion, a suicide car bomber drove into a police checkpoint, killing nine people including seven policemen and wounding 21 people in the Abu Dsheer district in the south of the capital, the sources said.
Four other car bombs killed a total of 19 people: one in the Bayaa district in southwestern Baghdad, one in the western district of Jihad and two in northern Baghdad's Kadhimiya, the site of a major Shia shrine.
One person was killed when a bomb laid on the side of a road exploded in the mixed Sunni-Shi'ite district of Saydiya in southern Baghdad later in the day.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks.
Islamic State, the militant group that seized large parts of northern Iraq last month, has claimed several suicide bombings in the capital. Its latest claim was for a bombing that killed three people on Thursday in the heart of the city.
Baghdad has seen few attacks compared to the violence in other areas hit by the Islamic State's offensive last month, though bombs still hit the capital on a fairly regular basis.
The civilian toll, mainly from fighting between government forces and the Sunni insurgents, this year has been huge.
