At least 79 people were killed in a series of car bombings and suicide attacks targeting Shi’ite Muslims across Iraq yesterday, police and medics said, extending the worst sectarian violence since US troops withdrew in December 2011.

One of the dead bodies was still grabbing a blood-soaked sandwich in his hand

The attacks increased the number killed in sectarian clashes in the past week to more than 200.

Tensions between Shi’ites, who now lead Iraq, and minority Sunni Muslims have reached a point where some fear a return to all-out civil conflict.

No group claimed responsibility for the bombings. Iraq has a number of Sunni Islamist insurgent groups, including the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, which has targeted Shi’ites in a bid to kindle a wider secta-rian conflagration.

Nine people were killed in one of two car bombings in Basra, a predominantly Shi’ite city 420 kilometres southeast of Baghdad, police and medics said. “I was on duty when a powerful blast shook the ground,” said a police officer near the site of that attack in the Hayaniya neighbourhood.

“The blast hit a group of day labourers gathering near a sandwich kiosk,” he said, describing corpses littering the ground.

“One of the dead bodies was still grabbing a blood-soaked sandwich in his hand.”

Five other people were killed in a second blast inside a bus terminal in Saad Square in Basra, police and medics said.

In Baghdad, at least 30 people were killed by car bombs in Kamaliya, Ilaam, Diyala Bridge, al-Shurta, Shula, Zaafaraniya and Sadr City – all areas with a high concentration of Shi’ites.

A parked car bomb also exploded in the mainly Shi’ite district of Shaab in northern Baghdad, killing 12 people and wounding 26 others, police and hospital sources said.

In Balad, 80 kilometres north of Baghdad, a parked car blew up near a bus carrying Shi’ite pilgrims from Iran, killing five Iranian pilgrims and two Iraqis who were travelling to the Shi’ite holy city of Samarra, police said.

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