Waves of bomb attacks throughout Iraq continue

A wave of bomb attacks in different provinces across Iraq A car bomb outside a Baghdad office issuing government IDs has killed at least 14 people, part of a wave of morning explosions across Iraq Monday, in which at least 51 have died. Security officials said the car blew up near an Interior Ministry office that issues ID cards to citizens in the capital's Shiite-dominated neighborhood of Sadr City, according to The Associated Press.
Earlier, attacks in the town of Taji just north of the capital killed 28. And blasts around the northern city of Kirkuk and in the town of Hussainiya outside Baghdad left another nine dead.
The deaths were confirmed by health officials in each community. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to release the information.
It was the country’s bloodiest day in three weeks after al-Qaeda’s front group in Iraq warned it sought to retake territory, AFP reported.
The violence, which also left at least 74 people wounded, came a day after a spate of bombings around the country killed 17 people, shattering a relative calm in recent weeks in the run-up to the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began in Iraq on Saturday.
One of the medical officials said the explosions included a suicide attack when emergency responders came to help victims of an initial set of roadside bombs in the town, which lies 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Baghdad.
Also north of the capital, at 5:00 am (0200 GMT), gunmen launched an assault on a military base in Albu Slaib, east of the town of Dhuluiyah, killing at least seven Iraqi soldiers, according to a medic at the hospital in the nearby town of Balad.
An Iraqi army first lieutenant put the toll at 15 dead and four wounded from the attack. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.
Bombings and shootings also hit Baghdad, as well as Saadiyah, Khan Beni Saad, Kirkuk, Tuz Khurmatu and Dibis, all of which are north of Baghdad.
A series of explosions in Kirkuk city and the eponymous province’s towns of Tuz Khurmatu and Dibis killed at least seven people and wounded 29 others.
Gunmen also attacked army and police checkpoints in Saadiyah and Khan Beni Saad, in restive Diyala province, killing two soldiers and a policeman and wounding four other members of the security forces, officials said.
Two other people were killed by a car bomb in the north Baghdad neighborhood of Husseiniyah, according to security and medical officials.
The attacks came a day after a spate of bombings across Iraq killed at least 17 people and wounded nearly 100 others.
Violence in Iraq has ebbed from its climax in 2006 and 2007, when sectarian conflicts pushed the country to the brink of a civil war, but tensions and sporadic attacks are still common across the country.
Al-Qaida's Iraqi branch on Sunday announced online that the terror group has been planning more attacks in Iraq.