Bombs Strike Iraqi Market Killing At Least 13

At least 13 people were killed when two car bombs exploded and a suicide attacker targeted a market in a mainly Shi’ite Muslim town north of Baghdad, police and local officials said on Monday.

No group claimed the attack on Jadidat al-Shatt in Diyala province, 40 km (25 miles) north of Baghdad, but Iraq is facing a surge in sectarian violence that officials blame on Sunni insurgents determined to drag the country into a civil war.

“Two car bombs were parked near the market and when they exploded, a suicide bomber in another car drove into the market and detonated his bomb,” said a local official.

Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in attacks since April, the highest toll since the sectarian bloodletting that drove Iraq to the edge of civil war and killed tens of thousands of people five years ago.

The war in neighboring Syria, where Shi’ite Iran and the region’s Sunni Gulf powers are backing opposing sides, has helped stoke tensions between Iraq’s Shi’ite majority leaders and the Sunni minority.

Source : Reuters