Wave Of Bombings Kill At Least 19 In Iraq

A wave of bombings in Baghdad and other areas of Iraq held by Shi'ites killed at least 19 people, police said.

One attack struck a busy commercial street in the eastern neighborhood of New Baghdad.

Seventeen people were killed and 43 wounded, mostly civilians, said a police colonel, hospital and interior ministry sources.

At least two people were killed and nine wounded in another attack in Zafaraniya, a district in southern Baghdad, the sources said.

Reuters reported that at least six soldiers and policemen were killed in a suicide attack at a checkpoint in the central town of Tarmiya, about 25 kilometers north of Baghdad, police and medical sources said.

Another eight people were killed and 16 wounded when a car bomb went off in a busy commercial street in Mandali, a predominately Kurdish Shi'ite town about 100 kilometers northeast of Baghdad.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for any of the attacks, but Shi'ite areas and government forces are often targeted by Islamic State and Sunni insurgents the government is struggling to dislodge from large sections of the north and west.

Based on reporting by AFP, Reuters, and AP