Car bombs kill at least 11 people in Iraq in latest string of attacks since US withdrawal
Source: The Washington Post / AP
BAGHDAD — Car bombs ripped through two Iraqi cities on Monday, killing at least 11 people, Iraq officials said, in the latest attacks targeting the country’s Shiites a month after the U.S. military withdrawal.
Violence has surged across Iraq since the last American troops left the country. A string of bombings has left at least 150 people dead since the beginning of the year. Most of the attacks appear aimed at Iraq’s Shiite majority, suggesting Sunni insurgents are seeking to undermine the Shiite-dominated government.
Iraq is also facing a sectarian political crisis after the Shiite-dominated government charged Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi with running death squads, issuing an arrest warrant against him just as the last U.S. soldiers crossed into neighboring Kuwait last month.
The first blast on Monday morning struck a Shiite district outside of Mosul, a predominantly Sunni city some 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, police and health officials at Mosul’s Al-Jomhouri hospital said. Eight people were killed an six wounded.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/car-bombs-kill-at-least-11-people-in-iraq-in-latest-string-of-attacks-since-us-withdrawal/2012/01/16/gIQAgqu22P_story.html