Deadly car bomb hits central Iraq, 11 killed

A car bomb near a cafe in central Iraq killed 11 people Monday, the latest in a series of such attacks this year, police and a doctor said.

The blast in the town of Buhruz, south of Baquba, also wounded 22 people, the sources said.

Militants have attacked dozens of cafes in Iraq in recent months and have repeatedly targeted other crowded areas such as markets and mosques despite increased security measures put in place by the authorities.

Violence in Iraq has reached a level this year not seen since 2008, when the country was just emerging from a brutal period of rampant sectarian killings.

Officials have pointed the finger at al-Qaeda-linked militants emboldened by the civil war in neighboring Syria, but analysts and diplomats say the government has not done enough to address underlying domestic problems fuelling the violence.

Unrest spiked after security forces stormed a Sunni Arab protest camp north of Baghdad in April, sparking clashes that killed dozens of people.

Members of the country’s Sunni minority, who complain of discrimination at the hands of the Shiite-led government, have held demonstrations for almost a year.

The government has made some concessions aimed at placating Sunni Arabs, including freeing prisoners and raising the salaries of anti-al-Qaeda fighters, and has also trumpeted security operations against militants.

But daily attacks have shown no sign of abating, and violence has killed more than 6,300 people since the beginning of the year, according to an AFP tally.