No group claimed the responsibility for the blasts but it’s supposed that Sunni insurgents have links to al-Qaeda. They are accused for many violent episodes in the past year. The deadliest attack in which seven people died struck a busy market in the south of the city.
Sporadic fighting flared around Falluja and Ramadi, where al-Qaeda militants seized control on January 1st. Prime minister Nury al-Maliki urged tribesmen to drive al-Qaeda militants from the city. The attacks were the latest in a protracted surge in nationwide violence that has left more than 650 people dead so far this month just months before parliamentary elections. Starting with the Shiite Islamists, all the big parties are in there, and there is also evidence of the persistence of some of the internal subdivisions within the State of Law alliance that came to the fore in the local elections this year.
