Two bomb attacks near Sunni mosques in the Iraqi capital killed at least 23 people who had gathered to pray after breaking their daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on Saturday, police and medics said.
A car packed with explosives went off near the Mulla Hwesh mosque in Baghdad’s western district of Jamia, killing at least seven people, and a suicide bomber blew himself up in the southern Doura neighborhood, leaving 16 dead.
“A bomb exploded while worshippers were leaving the mosque of Khalid Bin al-Waleed. Bodies were thrown back by the power of the explosion,” said a policeman at the scene of the blast in Doura.
The violence is part of a sustained campaign of militant attacks since the start of the year that has prompted fears of wider conflict in a country where ethnic Kurds and Shi’ite and Sunni Muslims have yet to find a stable power-sharing compromise.
It was not clear who was behind Saturday’s explosions.
Sunni insurgents, including the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, have been recruiting from Iraq’s Sunni minority, which resents Shi’ite domination since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.