5 car bombs kill 36 in Shiite areas across Iraq

Five car bombs struck in predominantly Shiite cities and districts in central and southern Iraq today, killing 36 people and wounding dozens in the latest wave of violence roiling the country, Iraqi officials said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for today's blasts but coordinated bombings in civilian areas are a favourite strategy used by al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Since last Tuesday and including the latest deaths, at least 218 people have been killed in attacks and battles between gunmen and security forces that began with clashes at a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq.
The deadliest attack today was in the southern city of Amarah, where two parked car bombs went off simultaneously in the early morning near a gathering of construction workers and a market, killing 18 people and wounding 42, the police said.

That attack was followed by another parked car bomb explosion near a restaurant in the city of Diwaniyah, which killed nine people and wounded 23.
At least three cars were left charred and twisted from the blast outside a two-story building whose facade was damaged in the bombing. Shop owners and cleaners were brushing debris off the bloodstained pavement.

Amarah, some 320 kilometres southeast of Baghdad and Diwaniyah, 130 kilometres south of the capital, are heavily Shiite and usually peaceful.
Hours later, yet another car bomb went off in the Shiite city of Karbala, killing three civilians and wounding 14, police said. Two early Islamic figures revered by Shiites are buried in the city, about 90 kilometres south of Baghdad.

And in the otherwise predominantly Sunni town of Mahmoudiya, about 30 kilometres south of Baghdad, a car bomb ripped through a Shiite neighbourhood killing six people and wounding 14, another police said.