Dozens killed in Baghdad blast

A car bomb has exploded near a Shia place of worship in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, Reuters news agency reported.

The blast on Wednesday in Baghdad's northwestern Kasra district killed at least 35 people and wounded 55 more, Al Jazeera has learned.

It was not immediately clear who had carried out the attack, Reuters said.

Sunni Muslim groups have been regaining momentum and striking on a near-daily basis in Iraq this year.

About 800 Iraqis were killed in August, according to the United Nations, with more than a third of the deadly attacks happening in Baghdad.

The bloodshed, 18 months after U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq, has stirred concerns about a return to the sectarian violence between 2006 and 2007, when the monthly death toll sometimes topped 3,000.

Rising sectarianism may be tied to the war in neighboring Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad, a member of the Shia offshoot Alawite community, is waging war against a broad opposition constituted primarily of Sunni Muslims.

With Hezbollah militias coming to the aid of the mostly Shia Syrian armed forces, and al-Qaeda in Iraq sending personnel to fight alongside the rebels, many fear that spillover from Syria will reignite Sunni-Shia violence in Iraq.

Al Jazeera and wire services