Bombs Targeting Shiites in Iraq Kill at Least 48

Truck bombs hit Shiite community near Mosul, as string of bombings in Iraq kills 48

By HAMID AHMED Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD August 10, 2009 (AP)

A man is seen at the site of one of five bombings that took place Friday in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday,...

A man is seen at the site of one of five bombings that took place Friday in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2009. A string of bombings targeted Shiite worshippers in the Baghdad area during Friday prayers, killing dozens in an apparently coordinated attack against followers of an anti-U.S. cleric who were blamed for some of Iraq's worst sectarian violence.

(Karim Kadim/AP Photo)

A double truck bombing tore through the village of a small Shiite ethnic minority near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, while nine blasts wracked Baghdad in a wave of violence Monday that killed at least 48 people and wounded more than 250, Iraqi officials said.

The attacks provided a grim example of U.S. military warnings that insurgents are targeting Shiites in an effort to re-ignite the kind of sectarian violence that nearly tore the country apart in 2006 and 2007.

The U.S. military has stressed that despite the rise in attacks, the Shiites are showing restraint and not retaliating as they did more than two years ago when a similar series of attacks and bombings provoked a Shiite backlash that degenerated into a sectarian slaughter claiming tens of thousands of lives.

The deadliest blast on Monday was a double truck bombing in Khazna village, just east of Mosul, home of the Shabak, a small Shiite ethnic group in the north.

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