Deadly bombings rock Iraq during Eid holiday celebrations

A series of car bombs in mainly Shia areas of Baghdad and across Iraq killed at least 91 people and wounded at least 300 on Saturday, in what appeared to be coordinated attacks on people celebrating the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Seventeen separate blasts targeting markets, busy shopping streets and parks where families like to mark Eid holiday, were part of a surge in sectarian violence in Iraq since the start of the year.

Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from Baghdad, said at least eight explosions occurred on Saturday evening – targeting cafes and markets. The attack sites were mainly in Shia-dominated areas although two bombs exploded in Sunni neighborhoods.  

"My shop's windows were smashed and smoke filled the whole area," said Saif Mousa, a shoe shop owner who survived an attack near his store in New Baghdad. "I went outside of the shop and I could hardly see because of the smoke.... At the end, we had a terrible day that was supposed to be nice because of Eid," Mousa said, according to The Associated Press.

The attacks follow one of the deadliest Ramadan months in years, with regular bomb attacks killing scores of people, especially in the capital. The latest bombings were similar to attacks in Baghdad on Tuesday in which 50 died.

More than 1,000 Iraqis have been killed in July, the highest monthly death toll since 2008, according to the United Nations. The Interior Ministry has said the country faced an "open war" fuelled by Iraq's sectarian divisions.

Sunni fighters have been regaining momentum in their uprising against the Shia-led government, and have been emboldened by the civil war in neighboring Syria, which has stoked sectarian tensions across the Middle East.

Outside Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonated a bomb in a car on a busy street in the town of Tuz Khurmato, 105 miles north of the capital, killing at least 10 people and wounding 45, medical and police sources said.

Tuz Khurmato is located in a particularly violent region over which both the central government and autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan claim jurisdiction.

Police believe the bomber was trying to reach the local headquarters of a Kurdish political party, but was unable to reach the building because of increased security in the area, a police source said.

In the town of Nassiriya, 185 miles southeast of Baghdad, twin car bombs near a park killed four people and wounded eight, police sources said.

US Department of State spokeswoman Jen Psaki condemned the attacks, saying in a statement that they are similar to suicide and vehicle bomb attacks in the country in the past month-and-a-half conducted by al-Qaeda's Iraq branch.

"The terrorists who committed these acts are enemies of Islam and a shared enemy of the United States, Iraq, and the international community," the statement said. 

Tensions between Shia, Kurdish and Sunni factions in Iraq's power-sharing government have been rising, and the renewed violence has sparked fears of a return to the sectarian slaughter of 2006-2007.

Iraqis have endured extreme violence for years, but since the start of 2013 the intensity of attacks on civilians has dramatically increased, reversing a trend that had seen the country grow more peaceful.

With Al Jazeera and wire services