Dozens killed in Iraq bombs

Three car bombs exploded at outdoor markets and on a street full of shops near Iraq's capital Baghdad Thursday, as part of a series of attacks that killed at least 29 people nationwide, officials said.

The deadliest attack took place in the city of Hillah when three separate car bombing killed nine people and wounded 21, police said. Authorities said that all the blasts happened in a five-minute period.

Hillah is about 60 miles south of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, police said a car bombing killed seven people and wounded 12 in the southern city of Najaf, about 100 miles south of Baghdad.

In the town of Suwayrah, on the outskirts of the capital, a car bomb ripped through a commercial area, killing five civilians and wounding 14, authorities confirmed

And a suicide bomber attacked a police checkpoint in the town of Samarra,killing three officers, police said. The blast wounded four officers and five civilians.

A roadside bomb struck a patrol of a pro-government, anti-Al-Qaeda Sunni militia, killing three and wounding seven in Tarmiyah, a Sunni town and former insurgent stronghold about 30 miles north of Baghdad, police said. Militants consider members of the group, known as the Awakening Council, as traitors since they were formed by U.S. forces during the height of Iraq's insurgency.

A bomb also went off in Baghdad's Palestine Street, killing two civilians and wounding eight, police said.

A spike in attacks in Iraq has raised fears about a return of the sectarian bloodshed that pushed the country to the brink of civil war in 2006-2007. Violence has been on rise since April when the government launched a bloody crackdown on a Sunni protest camp. More than 5,500 people have been killed since. Thursday's attacks bring the total death toll so far this month to 438, according to an Associated Press count.

The Associated Press