AL JAZEERA (Qatar), CNN (USA), REUTERS
BAGHDAD - At least 32 people have been killed and scores injured on Monday in a series of car bombs and shootings across Iraqi cities.
Reports are still conflicting as to the number of attacks and casualties in this latest spate of violence plaguing the country.
CNN reports that eight car bombs in mainly Shi'ite districts of Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, killed at least 20 people on Monday.
Meanwhile, at least nine people were killed and 37 others wounded when two car bombs exploded in the predominantly Shiite Basra neighborhood in southern Iraq.
In another attack, gunmen ambushed two police checkpoints in Haditha on Monday, killing eight officers.
In Samarra, north of Baghdad, a car bomb killed two Sahwa anti-Al-Qaeda fighters and wounded 12, while a roadside bomb wounded three people in Mosul, northern Iraq.
The bodies of eight civilians who were kidnapped by gunmen on Saturday were found dead late Sunday night, officials told CNN.
Dozens of people have been killed in attacks over the past week as tensions between minority Sunni Muslims and Shi'ites who now lead Iraq have reached their highest level since U.S. troops pulled out in December 2011, Al Jazeera reports.
More than 700 people were killed in April by a U.N. count, the highest figure in almost five years, according to Reuters