At least 27 killed, 50 wounded in new Iraq bombings

PanARMENIAN.Net - At least 27 people were killed and more than 50 others were wounded Tuesday, Sept 3 when nine car bombs exploded in largely Shiite areas in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

The attacks unfolded within an hour shortly before sunset, police said, according to CNN.

The explosions took place in Karrada, al-Alam, Talbiya, Abu Dsheer, Al-Maamil, Zafaraniya, al-Shurta Rabaa and Skaniya, police said. The deadliest attack was in al-Shurta Rabaa, in southwestern Baghdad when a car bomb in a busy shopping area killed six people and wounded 12 others. At dawn, gunmen stormed a house of a Sunni family in Arab-Jabour district in southern Baghdad and shot dead five family members, police said.

The United Nations said about 800 Iraqis were killed in August. Most of the 804 killed were civilians, targeted in shootings and bombings mainly claimed by the Iraqi wing of al Qaeda. More than 2,000 people were wounded.

The number of people who were killed last month was however lower than in July, when the UN reported that there were 1,057 victims, the highly monthly toll since 2008. Violence in Iraq was at its height in 2006-2007 when the number of people killed per month sometimes exceeded 3,000.

Nearly 5,000 civilians have been killed and 12,000 wounded since the beginning of 2013, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said in a statement, according to Reuters.

In August, Baghdad was once again the most affected governate, accounting for more than a third of those killed nationwide, the UN said.

Since 2008 violence has decreased and a rise in oil revenues has helped to boost the economy. But eighteen months since U.S. troop withdrew, bombing campaigns have increased.

Insurgents have been invigorated by the sectarian conflict in neighboring Syria and have profited from rising political tensions in Iraq.