BAGHDAD?? A wave of bombings ripped across Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing at least 60 people and injuring more than 150 in the worst violence Iraq has seen for months. The bloodbath comes just days after American forces left the country.
The blasts also came on the heels of a political crisis between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite factions that erupted this weekend.
The political spat has raised fears that Iraq's sectarian wounds will be reopened during a fragile time when Iraq is finally navigating its own political future without U.S. military support.
Most of the attacks appeared to hit Shiite neighborhoods although some Sunni areas were also targeted.
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While the string of explosions was likely not a direct response to the political Sunni-Shiite confrontation, it will ratchet up tensions at a time when many Iraqis are already worried about security. If continued, it could lead to the same type of tit-for-tat attacks that characterized the insurgency years ago.
Iraqi officials said at least 14 blasts went off early Thursday morning in 11 neighborhoods around the city.
Figures gathered from Iraqi health and police officials across the city put the death toll at 60, with 160 injured. The spokesman for the Iraqi health ministry put the death toll at 57 and said at least 176 people were injured. Conflicting casualty figures are common in the aftermath of such attacks.
The explosions ranged from blasts from sticky bombs attached to cars to roadside bombs and vehicles packed with explosives. There was at least one suicide bombing among the attacks.
'A huge explosion'
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.
Raghad Khalid, a teacher at a kindergarten near the Karrada blast, said "some parts of the car bomb are inside our building."
"I saw all the windows were blown out and glass scattered everywhere. The children were scared and crying," Khalid added.
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 Shiite neighborhood in Doura in the south, killing three people and wounding six, police said.
"My baby was sleeping in her bed. Shards of glass have fallen on our heads. Her father hugged her and carried her. She is now scared in the next room," said one woman in western Baghdad who identified herself as Um Hanin. "All countries are stable. Why don't we have security and stability?"
More bombs ripped into the central Alawi area, Shaab and Shula in the north, all mainly Shiite areas, and a roadside bomb killed one and wounded five near the Sunni neighborhood 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 Shiite communities in attacks that killed thousands of people.
Stubborn insurgency
Iraq is still fighting a stubborn, lower-grade insurgency with Sunni Islamists tied to al-Qaida and Shiite 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. Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs share out government posts in a unwieldy system that has been impaired by political infighting since it began.
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The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is a Shiite, has accused the Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi of running a hit squad that targeted government officials.
Al-Maliki is also pushing for a vote of no-confidence against another Sunni politician, the deputy prime minister Saleh al-Mutlaq. Al-Maliki was likened to Saddam by al-Mutlaq.
Many Sunnis fear that this is part of a wider campaign to go after Sunni political figures in general and shore up Shiite control across the country.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the morning's violence. But the coordinated nature of the assault and the fact that the attacks took place in numerous neighborhoods suggested a planning capability only available to al-Qaida in Iraq.
Many of the neighborhoods were also Shiite areas which are a favorite target of al-Qaida. The Sunni extremist group often targets Shiites who they believe are not true Muslims.
U.S. military officials have said they're worried about a resurgence of al-Qaida after the American military leaves the country. If that happens, it could lead Shiite militants to fight back and attack Sunni targets, thus sending Iraq back to the sectarian violence it experienced just a few years ago.
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Iraq's Sunni minority have felt marginalized since the rise of the Shiite majority in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
Many Sunnis feel they have been shunted aside in the power-sharing agreement that Washington touts as a young democracy.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45762201/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/
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