BAGHDAD – Six car bombs exploded across Baghdad yesterday, killing at least 34 people and wounding scores, police said, after the arrests of Sunni Arab fighters raised tension in the Iraqi capital.
A blast at a popular market in the Shia Muslim slum of Sadr City in east Baghdad killed at least 10 people and wounded 65. Another car bomb blew up next to a group of labourers queuing for work, killing six people and wounding 16.
Hours later, south Baghdad’s Um al-Maalif neighbourhood was shaken by two blasts in a market, killing 12 and wounding 25.
Two other blasts shook a market area of Husseiniya, on Baghdad’s northern outskirts, killing four, and a street in eastern Baghdad, apparently targeting the convoy of an Interior Ministry official, killing one of his guards and a bystander.
The attacks followed a week of arrests in Baghdad by Iraq’s Shia-led government of Sunni Arab fighters known as Awakening Councils, or Majalis al-Sahwa in Arabic.
The Iraqi government insists it is only detaining those wanted for grave crimes, but the fighters – many of them former insurgents – fear it is settling sectarian scores.
The fighters first switched sides and joined with US forces to battle Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda in late 2006, manning checkpoints and conducting raids throughout the country. – (Reuters)