• pub­lished: 12 Aug 2013
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Car Bombs Kill Near­ly 80 in Iraq, Tar­get Eid Fes­tiv­i­ties - Zee 24 Sub­scribe for more News: http://​goo.​gl/​q4o6uS Like us on FB@ https://​facebook.​com/​Zee24GantaluTeluguNews Fol­low us on Twit­ter@ https://​twitter.​com/​Zee24TeluguNews At least 91 peo­ple have been killed and hun­dreds in­jured in a se­ries of car bombs that rocked Bagh­dad and other Iraqi cities amid Eid al-Fitr cel­e­bra­tions, an in­te­ri­or min­istry of­fi­cial said. The at­tacks were the lat­est in spi­ralling vi­o­lence which au­thor­i­ties have failed to stem, with the worst blood­shed in five years rais­ing wor­ries of a re­turn to the all-out Sun­ni-Shia sec­tar­i­an con­flict that killed tens of thou­sands in past years. The lat­est vi­o­lence comes just weeks after brazen as­saults, claimed by an al-Qae­da front group, on pris­ons near Bagh­dad that freed hun­dreds of fight­ers and which an­a­lysts warn could boost armed groups. Over­all, 17 car bombs and a se­ries of shoot­ings and other blasts killed at least 91 peo­ple and wound­ed over 300 across the coun­try Sat­ur­day, se­cu­ri­ty and med­i­cal of­fi­cials said, as Iraqis cel­e­brat­ed the Eid al-Fitr hol­i­days which fol­low the Mus­lim fast­ing month of Ra­madan. Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, re­port­ing from the Iraqi cap­i­tal, said 50 peo­ple had been killed in nine blasts in seven areas of the city on Sat­ur­day evening, in ap­par­ent­ly co­or­di­nat­ed strikes. Car bomb­ings The blasts hit pub­lic mar­kets, cafes, and restau­rants, while vi­o­lence ear­li­er on Sat­ur­day killed two oth­ers in the cap­i­tal, ac­cord­ing to se­cu­ri­ty and med­i­cal of­fi­cials. At Bagh­dad's Al-Kin­di hos­pi­tal, medics treat­ed a man, ap­par­ent­ly a sol­dier, whose face, chest and arms were cov­ered in blood. Medics sprint­ed into the hos­pi­tal push­ing peo­ple on stretch­ers, one of them a blan­ket-swathed man whose eyes were closed. An­oth­er man ran be­hind the stretch­er, weep­ing as it was wheeled into the hos­pi­tal. Out­side, long lines of cars inched along Bagh­dad roads, held up by in­creased se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures that came too late for the dozens of vic­tims. Also on Sat­ur­day, a sui­cide bomber det­o­nat­ed an ex­plo­sives-rigged ve­hi­cle near a po­lice check­point in Tuz Khur­matu, north of the cap­i­tal, killing nine peo­ple. A car bomb in Kirkuk, also north of Bagh­dad, killed an en­gi­neer. Two car bombs in the south­ern city of Nasiriyah killed four, while a car bomb in the shrine city of Kar­bala left five oth­ers dead. Else­where, three peo­ple were killed and five oth­ers wound­ed in sep­a­rate at­tacks in Babil and Nin­eveh provinces. More than 800 peo­ple died in at­tacks dur­ing the dawn-to-dusk fast­ing month of Ra­madan, which began in the sec­ond week of July and ended this week. Fight­ers struck tar­gets rang­ing from cafes where Iraqis gath­ered after break­ing their daily fast, to mosques where ex­tend­ed evening prayers were held dur­ing the month. 'Open war' The vi­o­lence came just weeks after at­tacks on pris­ons near the cap­i­tal in which hun­dreds of in­mates were freed. An­a­lysts, as well as glob­al po­lice or­gan­i­sa­tion In­ter­pol, have warned that the jail­breaks could lead to a rise in at­tacks, as the es­capees were said to in­clude se­nior al-Qae­da fight­ers. The In­te­ri­or Min­istry has said the coun­try faces an "open war" fu­elled by Iraq's sec­tar­i­an di­vi­sions and has at­tempt­ed to boost se­cu­ri­ty in Bagh­dad, clos­ing roads and send­ing out fre­quent he­li­copter pa­trols. Our cor­re­spon­dent said the with­draw­al of Amer­i­can com­bat troops from Iraq 18 months ago has hit se­cu­ri­ty ef­forts and em­bold­ened Sunni fight­ers to step up at­tacks. "Peo­ple in the Iraqi se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices will tell you ... that the Iraqi army is now on its own. They do not have the in­tel­li­gence from the Amer­i­cans that they had be­fore. That has caused Sunni groups to go on the of­fen­sive. "Then you have Shia groups tak­ing re­venge against them, in a clas­sic tit-for-tat sit­u­a­tion." The Unit­ed States con­demned the per­pe­tra­tors of the at­tacks as "en­e­mies of Islam," in an un­usu­al­ly de­tailed state­ment. The State De­part­ment said that the car bombs and shoot­ings were "cow­ard­ly" at­tacks "aimed at fam­i­lies cel­e­brat­ing the Eid al-Fitr" hol­i­day.