A series of car bombs killed at least 12 people and wounded scores in the Iraqi cities of Ramadi and Falluja today, while the prominent governor of troubled northern Nineveh province escaped an assassination attempt.
The blasts followed a series of explosions at a busy market in the centre of Iraq's southern oil hub Basra late last night that killed at least 43 and wounded 185, officials said.
Iraq has been in political limbo since an inconclusive March 7th election while Shia, Sunni and Kurdish political factions try to sort out a coalition government. Politicians and security officials say insurgents appear to be trying to take advantage of the power vacuum.
Iraq's leaders have failed to agree a new government in five months since the vote. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited Massoud Barzani, president of the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region, in Arbil today seeking a solution to the impasse.
In the northern city of Mosul, considered one of Iraq's most dangerous places in recent months, a roadside bomb exploded near a convoy transporting Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of Nineveh province, from his home to work today, police said.
Nujaifi and his staff escaped injury in the initial blast, which took place on a road that is considered one of the safest in Mosul. But a second roadside bomb exploded when police responded to the scene, wounding three officers, police said.
In Falluja, about 50km west of Baghdad, three car bomb blasts - two of them targeting police patrols - killed at least four people and wounded more than two dozen others, police and medical sources said.
One of the car bombs was left behind by gunmen who robbed a currency exchange merchant of $85,000 at his home, police said.
In Ramadi, 100km west of the capital, a car bomb exploded near a restaurant on a busy main street, killing at least eight people and wounding 50, police said.
In three other attacks in restive Mosul, nine people were wounded when a hand grenade was thrown into a crowd of civilians and four others were hurt when roadside bombs exploded near police and army patrols, police said.
In Basra, families tried to identify scores of charred bodies in the morgue of one of Iraq's biggest cities after firefighters spent until late yesterday battling fierce flames.
A witness said shops stretching 300m either side of the busy al-Ashaar market were burned out.
"The death toll of the three explosions that hit the market yesterday reached 43 people killed and 185 wounded," Riyadh Abdulameer, head of Basra's health department, told Reuters, adding this was not the final count.
Ali al-Maliki, the head of the security committee in the Basra council, said three bombs, two of them car bombs, exploded within a circle of about 200m around the market.
"The explosions carry the finger print of al-Qaeda and the remainder of the Baathists," Maliki said.
Reuters