Bombings tore through busy areas in the Iraqi capital and cities to the north and south on Wednesday, killing at least 14 people, officials said, according to Reuters.
Iraq is experiencing its worst surge in violence since the sectarian bloodletting of 2006 and 2007, which pushed the country to the brink of civil war, Reuters reported.
The United Nations mission in Iraq said May was the deadliest month so far this year, with 799 Iraqis killed in violence, including 603 civilians, according to Reuters. According to U.N. figures, 8,868 people were killed in 2013.
A car bombing rocked a commercial area in the southern Shiite city of Hillah, killing eight civilians and wounding 28 in June, according to a police officer and a medical official, Reuters reported.
Back-to-back car bombs struck a parking lot near a police building and a nearby commercial area in the ethnically mixed northern city of Kirkuk, killing a policeman and seven civilians, and wounding nine other people, according to Reuters.
Authorities in Iraq's western province of Anbar also said Wednesday that a suicide bomber targeted a group of pro-government, anti-militant Sunni militiamen late the night before, killing eight people and wounding 14, Reuters reported.
The bomber struck the militiamen when they were patrolling a camp for families who had fled the months-long fighting in western Anbar province between militants from an al-Qaeda splinter group and government forces allied with Sunni tribal fighters, a police officer said, according to Reuters.
The officer identified one of the slain militiamen as Mohammed Khamis Abu Risha, the nephew of the influential tribal leader Ahmed Abu Risha whose brother led the formation of the original Sahwa, an anti-al-Qaida militia allied with U.S. forces until his assassination in 2007, Reuters reported.
The al-Qaeda splinter group, known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and other Sunni-led militant groups have strengthened their control over parts of Anbar province, including the city of Fallujah and parts of Ramadi, since late December, according to Reuters. The government has made little if any progress in its campaign to dislodge them.
