Six car bombs rock Baghdad, five dead

Six car bombs ripped through Baghdad, mostly targeting Shiite neighborhoods, killing at least five people on Thursday, security and medical officials said.

The blasts occurred within an hour of each other from around midday (0900 GMT) onwards in various parts of the Iraqi capital, leaving dozens more wounded.

Four of the neighborhoods hit are populated mostly by Iraq’s Shiite majority, while the other two were in the commercial Karrada district of central Baghdad. Three of the blasts targeted market areas.
The bombings come a day after a spate of attacks in the Iraqi capital left 33 people dead, including 25 who were killed in a series of bombings near the heavily-fortified Green Zone, which is home to parliament, the prime minister’s office and the US and British embassies.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombings, but Sunni militant groups including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a powerful jihadist outfit, have in the past taken credit for bombing campaigns in the capital targeting Shiites.