Car bombs in Baghdad, Iraqi town kill 24 people

Car bombs have hit several mostly Shia neighborhoods of Baghdad and a town south of the Iraqi capital, killing at least 24 people and wounding dozens, officials say.
The bomb blasts occurred as the country marked the 11th anniversary of the fall of the Iraqi capital during the US-led invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
They came a day after Iraq’s security forces said they killed 25 militants near Baghdad, amid worries that insurgents are encroaching on the city ahead of April 30 elections.
The deadliest of the day’s attacks took place in the town of Numaniyah, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Baghdad, where a bomb first went off in a busy commercial area, followed by a car bomb that exploded as people gathered to help the victims from the first blast. In all, five people were killed and 17 were wounded, police said.
Earlier in the day, a car bomb in Baghdad’s central Nidhal Street killed four people and wounded 11, while three people died and nine were wounded in a car bombing in the northern Kadhimiyah district.
Car bombs also exploded in the areas of Shaab, Shammaiya, Karrada and Maamil, killing a total of seven people and wounding 30, police officials added.
Later Wednesday, three more civilians died and eight were wounded when another car bomb struck Baghdad’s central upscale commercial area of Jadiriyah.
Violence across Iraq has killed more than 2,400 people this year, sparking fears the country is slipping back into the all-out sectarian fighting that plagued it in 2006 and 2007.
The bloodshed has been driven principally by anger in the Sunni Arab community over alleged mistreatment at the hands of the Shia-led government and security forces, as well as spillover from the civil war in neighboring Syria.