Car bombs kill 16 in Baghdad

Car bombs struck Shiite neighbourhoods of the Iraqi capital and a northern city on Thursday, killing 16 people, while gunmen in Baghdad shot dead the brother of a Sunni lawmaker, officials said.

The attacks followed a wave of bombings Wednesday that also struck mainly in Shiite neighborhoods, killing 33 people and raising concerns over a return to the sectarian bloodshed in Iraq.

In the first of Thursday’s bombings at a bus and taxi stop in the city’s eastern Sadr City neighbourhood, nine people were killed and 16 were wounded. Another car bomb hit a small market at a taxi stop in Kamaliya, killing three civilians and wounding 14 others.

In Chikok district, two civilians were killed and 10 were wounded when a car bomb missed a police patrol that was passing through, two other police officers said.

In Mosul, a suicide attacker rammed his car into an army check point, killing two soldiers and wounding three others, another police officer said. In Baiyaa, drive-by gunmen shot a brother of a Sunni lawmaker.