Baghdad - At least 57 people were killed on Monday in car bomb attacks in Baghdad and the north and south of Iraq, police and medical sources said.
One attack took place near a crowded market in the town of Khalis, about 80km north-east of Baghdad, killing 35 people, police said.
“The driver begged police to be allowed to park his vehicle in order to buy medication from a nearby pharmacy and five minutes later it (the bomb) went off and caused huge destruction,” police captain Mohammed al-Tamimi said.
In the town of Al Zubair, about 15 km south-west of the oil town of Basra, a second attack took place also near a crowded market. Ten people died.
Another car bomb exploded in the Hussainiya district of the northern outskirts of Baghdad, killing 12 people, police and medical sources said.
Iraq, a major OPEC oil producer, is struggling to come up with a formula to contain Islamic State, the ultra-hardline Sunni group that controls a third of the country and wants to redraw the map of the Middle East.
Islamic State has previously claimed responsibility for car and suicide bombings.
Reuters