Bomb attacks in mainly Shias Muslim areas of Iraq killed at least 73 people and wounded scores on Thursday, police and hospital sources said, new examples of an increase in sectarian strife. The biggest attack was beside a police checkpoint west of Nassiriya in the south, where a suicide bomber targeting Shias pilgrims killed 44 people and wounded 81, Sajjad al-Asadi, head of the provincial security committee in Nassiriya, told Reuters.
Shias Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki created the worst political crisis in a year on December 19 when he sought the removal of two senior Sunni politicians, a day after the last US troops left Iraq. On December 22, bombs in predominately Shias parts of Iraq's capital killed 72.
Maliki asked parliament to have his Sunni deputy Saleh al-Mutlaq removed and sought the arrest of Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi on charges he ran death squads. On Tuesday, members of the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc boycotted the parliament and cabinet, accusing Maliki's bloc of governing alone in a power-sharing coalition that was supposed to ease sectarian tension.
The inclusion of Iraqiya in the governing coalition was widely considered crucial to prevent a return to the level of sectarian violence that erupted after the 2003 US-led invasion. Thousands were killed in the fighting. The manager of the main hospital in Nassiriya, Ahmed Abdel-Sahib, put Thursday's toll at 44 killed and 88 wounded.
Photographs showed relatives hugging the bodies of young men lying face down on ground covered in blood and with the pilgrims' belongings strewn around them. Hundreds of thousands of Shias pilgrims are expected to make their way to the holy Shias city of Kerbala in the south before Arbain, a major Shias religious rite next week. Earlier on Thursday, a bomb planted on a parked motorcycle and another roadside explosive device killed at least 10 people and wounded 37 in Sadr City, a slum district in north-east Baghdad, police and hospital sources said.