Car bomb attacks kill dozens in Iraq

At least 51 people were killed and 120 others injured on Monday by a series of car bomb attacks that struck a range of targets across Baghdad and the north and south of Iraq, police sources told Al Jazeera.

One attack took place near a crowded market in the Shia-majority town of Khalis, about 50 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing 30 people and injuring 60 others, police said.

"The driver begged police to be allowed to park his vehicle in order to buy medication from a nearby pharmacy and five minutes later it [the bomb] went off and caused huge destruction," said police captain Mohammed al-Tamimi. 

In the town of Al Zubair, about 9 miles southwest of the oil town of Basra, a second attack took place, also near a crowded market. Ten people died in that explosion and 30 others were injured. 

Another car bomb exploded in the Hussainiya district of the northern outskirts of Baghdad, killing 11 people and injuring 30, police sources added.

Iraq, a major OPEC oil producer, is struggling to come up with a formula to contain Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Sunni group that controls a third of the country and wants to redraw the map of the Middle East.

While no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, ISIL regularly targets Shia neighborhoods and government installations in an effort to destabilize the Shia-led government in Baghdad.

Al Jazeera and wire services