New Wave of Iraq Attacks Kills 70

A wave of attacks on Monday, mostly against Sunni areas of Iraq, killed 70 people in renewed bloodshed that, coupled with widespread political paralysis, has revived fears of all-out sectarian war.

The violence, which left more than 230 people wounded, came after several days of relative calm following symbolic moves by Iraq's political leaders to ease tensions among the country's communities after the U.N. warned violence was ready to "explode".

But no tangible moves have been agreed to address underlying disputes that have fueled months of protests among Iraq's Sunni community and, analysts say, given militant groups fuel and room to manoeuvre.

No group has claimed responsibility for the bloodshed, but Sunni militants linked to al-Qaida have previously attacked security forces and fellow Sunnis, ostensibly in a bid to provoke retributive violence against Iraq's Shiite community.

Monday's deadliest violence struck the main northern city of Mosul, with a series of five car bombings mostly targeting security forces leaving at least 29 dead and 80 others wounded, officials said.

"We have received many corpses," said Anwar al-Juburi, a doctor at Mosul General Hospital.

"Most of them were members of the security forces."

Authorities declared a curfew in the city in the aftermath of the violence.

Attacks near Saddam Hussein's birthplace of Owja, the town of Dour and in Taji -- all predominantly Sunni Arab areas -- meanwhile left a further 13 people dead.

Ten more people were killed in violence in the northern province of Kirkuk and the nearby towns of Tuz Khurmatu and Suleiman Bek.

The towns, which are mixed between Sunni Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen populations, are seen as a tinderbox because they are part of a swathe of territory claimed by the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region.

Blasts in the mixed town of Madain and a mostly Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad left five more dead.

Earlier on Monday, two car bombs and a suicide attack -- all of which went off near-simultaneously -- in a wholesale fruit and vegetable market in the town of Judaida al-Shat in restive Diyala province, killed 13 people.

"Al-Qaida is behind this terrorist attack," Mohammed al-Zaidi, a vegetable vendor wounded in the bombing in the mostly-Shiite town told Agence France Presse, adding the extremist group was trying to "sow religious hatred in our region, as we live peacefully with the Sunnis."

The unrest comes amid a surge in attacks in Iraq, with violence in May pushing the month's death toll to the highest such figure since 2008, raising concerns of a revival of the all-out sectarian war that blighted the country in 2006 and 2007.

There has been a heightened level of attacks since the beginning of the year, coinciding with rising discontent among the Sunni Arab minority that erupted into protests in late December.

The U.N. envoy to Iraq Martin Kobler has warned the violence is "ready to explode".

In a bid to ease tensions, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has in recent days met with two of his arch rivals -- the Sunni speaker of parliament and the president of the autonomous Kurdish region.

While the country's top politicians have pledged to address persistent political disputes, which analysts say are linked to violence levels, no tangible moves have yet been announced.