Violence continues in Iraq

Associated Press

BAGHDAD

Officials in Iraq are growing increasingly concerned over an unabated spike in violence that claimed at least an additional 33 lives Thursday and is reviving fears of a return to widespread sectarian fighting.

Authorities announced plans to impose a sweeping ban on many cars across the Iraqi capital starting early today in an apparent effort to thwart car bombings, as the United Nations envoy to Iraq warned that “systemic violence is ready to explode.”

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, was shown on state television visiting security checkpoints around Baghdad the previous night as part of a three-hour inspection tour, underscoring the government’s efforts to show it is acting to curtail the bloodshed.

Iraqi security forces are struggling to contain the country’s most-relentless round of violence since the 2011 U.S. military withdrawal.

The rise in violence follows months of protests against the Shiite-led government by Iraq’s Sunni minority, many of whom feel they’ve been marginalized and unfairly treated since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Tensions escalated sharply last month after a deadly crackdown by security forces on a Sunni protest camp.

Sunni militants, including al-Qaida, long have targeted Iraq’s Shiite majority and government security forces. But Sunni mosques and other targets also have been struck over the past several weeks, raising the possibility that Shiite militias also are growing more active.