BAGHDAD, (PNA/Xinhua) — At least nine people were killed and 54 wounded in a series of shootings and bombings across Iraq on Sunday, police said.
In northern Iraq, gunmen shot dead three passengers after they stopped their car on a main road in the city of Shirqat, some 280 km north of the capital Baghdad, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, a civilian was killed and 17 wounded in a roadside bomb explosion in the industrial area at the entrance of the holy Shiite city of Karbala, some 110 km south of Baghdad, a local police source said.
In southern Iraq, two car bombs ripped through the city of Nasriyah, some 375 km south of Baghdad, wounding eight people, a local police source said.
Also in the south, a car bomb detonated in the oil-hub city of Basra, some 550 km south of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding two others, a local police source said.
Two more car bombs went off in a quick succession in the city of Hilla, some 100 km south of Baghdad, wounding 20 people, a local police source told Xinhua.
A roadside bomb went off in the city of Kut, some 170 km southeast of Baghdad, wounding a civilian, a local police source said.
In a separate incident, a civilian was killed and four wounded when a booby-trapped car went off near the convoy of Ryadh al- Adhadh, Chairman of Baghdad Provincial Council, in Baghdad’s northern district of Adhamiyah, an Interior Ministry source anonymously told Xinhua.
Adhadh escaped the blast unharmed and his convoy safely continued their way, the source said.
Separately, a civilian was killed and another wounded in a roadside bomb in Abu Ghraib area, about 25 km west of Baghdad, while another civilian was wounded when a sticky bomb attached to his car exploded in Abu Dsheer district, in the southern part of the capital, the source added.
Iraq is witnessing its worst eruption of violence in recent years, which raises fears that the country is sliding back to the full-blown civil conflict that peaked in 2006 and 2007, when monthly death toll sometimes exceeded 3,000.