At least 45 people were killed in bomb attacks across Iraq on Tuesday, July 2 most of them in busy markets and commercial areas of the capital Baghdad, police and medics said, according to Reuters.
The deadliest assault took place in the predominantly Shi'ite Shaab neighborhood of northern Baghdad, where two car bombs killed eight people. There were also explosions in the mainly Shi'ite districts of Abu Dsheer, Kamaliya, Tobchi and Shula.
Sunni Muslims were the apparent targets of blasts in Amriya and Abu Ghraib, on the city's western outskirts.
A sustained campaign of attacks since the start of the year has increased fears of wider conflict in a country where ethnic Kurds, Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims have yet to find a stable power-sharing compromise.
Insurgents including al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate have been recruiting from the country's Sunni minority, which resents Shi'ite domination since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
On Monday, attacks targeting Shi'ites left at least 27 people dead. The number of people killed in militant attacks across Iraq in June reached 761.
