Scores killed in Baghdad bomb attacks

At least 80 people were killed and more than 250 others were wounded Wednesday in a series of bombings and other attacks across Baghdad, police and medical sources told Reuters. The violence extended a wave of sectarian bloodshed in Iraq that saw more than 1,000 Iraqis killed in the month of July alone. 

Wednesday's violence was the worst since Aug. 10, when nearly 80 people were killed during Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. 

Car bombs hit southern, northern and western Baghdad in a cluster of attacks early in the day and late in the evening that targeted both Shiite and Sunni areas of the capital.

It was not immediately clear who carried out the attacks, which appeared coordinated, but Sunni Muslim insurgents including the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq have significantly stepped up bombings this year.

The northern neighborhood of Kadhimiya, home to a prominent, gold-domed Shiite shrine, was the worst hit.

Two bombs went off in a parking lot, followed by a suicide car bomber who struck onlookers gathering at the scene. Police said 10 people were killed and 27 wounded in that attack.

More than two years of civil war in neighboring Syria have aggravated deep-rooted sectarian divisions in Iraq, fraying the country's uneasy coalition of Shiite Muslim, Sunni Muslim and Kurdish factions. 

In Sadr City, an impoverished Shiite district in Baghdad's northeast, two car bombs killed seven people.

The Interior Ministry described the attacks as "terrorist explosions" but said the number of people killed was only 20, with 213 wounded. The Shiite-led Baghdad government has said that media reports exaggerate attacks in Iraq and that security forces have stopped many attempted bombings. 

The renewed violence, 18 months after U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq, has stirred anxiety about a relapse toward the widespread sectarian slaughter of 2006-07. 

In other attacks on Wednesday, gunmen killed six members of the Sahwa ("Awakening") movement, a group of former Sunni fighters who rebelled against al-Qaeda. They were attacked in an ambush on a checkpoint in Latifiya, a suburb 25 miles south of Baghdad. 

Gunmen also stormed a Shiite home in the same area, killing six family members, police and medical sources told Reuters. 

Four soldiers were killed and five were wounded in Madaen, southeast of Baghdad, by a roadside bomb that targeted an Iraqi army patrol, police and medics said. 

After years of reduced violence, the intensity of attacks has dramatically risen since the start of 2013. Bombings have often targeted cafes and other places where families gather, as well as the usual military facilities and checkpoints.

Wire services