Multiple bomb blasts kill 24 in Baghdad

Half a dozen bomb explosions killed 24 people and wounded 58 in Baghdad on Monday, Iraqi police and medics told Reuters news agency.

Seven people were killed in the bloodiest attack, which occurred in the Shiite Muslim Abu Dsheer district in the south of the Iraqi capital, where the car bomb hit near a crowded market.

The attacks also struck Dura, where at least five people were killed, and Baghdad Jadidah, where four were left dead, according to Agence France-Presse.

Two explosions went off in the predominantly Sunni south Baghdad neighborhood of Dura, while at least three vehicles rigged with explosives were detonated in the mostly-Shiite areas of Baghdad Jadidah, Hurriyah and Bayaa.

The attacks were the latest in a protracted surge in nationwide violence that has left more than 650 people dead so far this month, sparking fears Iraq is slipping back into the all-out conflict that plagued it in 2006 and 2007.

The countrywide unrest, coupled with a deadly standoff between security forces and anti-government fighters west of Baghdad, comes just months before parliamentary elections.

(With AFP and Reuters)