Bombs ripped through Shi'ite areas of Baghdad and northern Iraq on Monday, killing at least 48 people and raising fears of a resurgence in sectarian violence just as politicians hope to reach out to old foes for January polls. The blasts are the latest of several major attacks since US combat forces withdrew from urban centers in June, raising doubts about whether Iraq's security forces, rebuilt from scratch after the 2003 US-led invasion, can cope alone. The deadliest blast was a double truck bombing in Khazna village, just east of Mosul, home of the Shabak, a small Shiite ethnic group in the north. The Shabak who have their own distinct language and belief system are part of the mosaic of ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq's north that include Yazidis, Assyrian Christians, Turkomen Shiites and Kurds. The two explosives-laden trucks went off nearly simultaneously and less than 500 meters apart, killing at least 28 people and wounding 138, said police and hospital officials. No one has claimed responsibility but the attack bore the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. A string of nine bombs also went off across Baghdad despite the security gains there that have prompted the Iraqi government to order the removal of nearly all the blast walls in the city within 40 days. The first bomb was hidden in a pile of trash that exploded about 5:50 A.M. near a group of day laborers drinking tea in the religiously mixed neighborhood of Amil, killing at least seven people and wounding 46, officials said. About 10 minutes later a car bomb targeted construction workers in western Baghdad, killed another 10 people and wounded 35, according to police. Three bombs also exploded in the mainly Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah shortly before 7 a.m., wounding a member of a government-backed paramilitary group, an army official said. A few hours later a roadside bomb exploded in front of a mosque in the primarily Sunni neighborhood of Sadiyah in southwest Baghdad, killing two and wounding 14 others, a police official said. A minibus exploded in the Shiite Shula neighborhood in northwest Baghdad, killing one and wounding three more, another official said. Two other bombs went off elsewhere in the city, wounding a total of 10 other people. “What is happening in Baghdad, Mosul and other cities is not about the abilities of the security forces, but about the changing strategy of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups,” said Firyad Rawandozi, a Kurdish lawmaker.
