57 die in Baghdad blasts

crisis between its Shi’ite Moslem-led government and Sunni rivals erupted days after the US troop withdrawal.
The apparently co-ordinated bombings were the first sign of rising violence after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki moved to sideline two Sunni Muslim leaders, just a few years after sectarian bloodletting drove Iraq to the edge of civil war.
At least 18 people were killed when a suicide bomber driving an ambulance detonated the vehicle near a government office in the Karrada district, sending up a dust cloud and scattering car parts into a kindergarten, police and health officials said.
“We heard the sound of a car driving, then car brakes, then a huge explosion, all our windows and doors are blown out, black smoke filled our apartment,” said Maysoun Kamal, who lives in a Karrada compound.
In total of at least 57 people were killed and 179 were wounded in more than 10 explosions in Baghdad, an Iraqi health ministry spokesperson said.
Two roadside bombs struck the south-western Amil district, killing at least seven people and wounding 21 others, while a car bomb blew up in a Shi’ite neighbourhood in Doura killing three people. – Reuters.