18 killed in Iraq bomb attacks

At least 18 people were killed and 63 others got injured in separate bomb attacks in Iraq's Diyala province and capital Baghdad Sunday evening, officials said.

A booby-trapped car parked at a popular market detonated in the western suburb of Diyala's capital Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, killing 13 people and wounding 36 others, Xinhua reported citing Baquba's mayor Abdullah al-Haiyali.

In another incident, a civilian was killed and 10 others were wounded in a roadside bomb explosion near a house in the northeastern part of Baquba, a police source said.

In Baghdad, two people were killed and seven wounded when a car bomb ripped through the city's eastern district of Zaiyouna, said an interior ministry source who did not wish to be named.

Two people were killed and eight wounded in a roadside bomb explosion in Shaab district in northeastern Baghdad, the source said, adding that two more people were wounded in a roadside bomb explosion in Baghdad's western district of Ghazaliyah.

Iraq is witnessing its worst eruption of violence in recent years, which raises fears that the country is sliding back to full-blown civil conflict that peaked in 2006 and 2007 when monthly death toll sometimes exceeded 3,000.

The UN Assistance Mission for Iraq recently reported that over 1,000 Iraqis were killed and more than 2,300 wounded in acts of terrorism and violence in July, the deadliest month in more than five years.