Bombings and shootings kill 28 across Iraq

BAGHDAD - Reuters

At least 28 people were killed in bombings and shootings across Iraq on July 25, police said.

In the deadliest attack, a bomb in a parked car exploded in a busy market killing 14 people in central Muqdadiya, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of the capital Baghdad, police said.

A bomb placed in a garden where people were celebrating a wedding exploded killing four people the Amiriya District of Baghdad.

Gunmen using silenced weapons shot dead four young men in four separate incidents in Baghdad.

In Madaen, about 30 km (20 miles) southeast of Baghdad, a roadside bomb planted near a cafe went off, killing three people.

Militants killed a police officer in the northern city of Mosul, while a child died in a roadside bombing, and a civil servant was also shot dead in the east of the city.

More than 750 people have been killed in militant attacks in Iraq so far in July, according to violence monitoring group Iraq Body Count.

Syria and Iraq al-Qaeda merger claims responsibility

The steady deterioration of security in Iraq was highlighted by a mass jailbreak near the capital on Sunday when around 500 convicts, including senior al Qaeda operatives, escaped after militants attacked two prisons.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which was formed through a merger between al Qaeda's Syrian and Iraqi branches, claimed responsibility for the raids and said it had freed its jailed comrades after months of preparation.

One security official told Reuters on July 25 that some of the escaped inmates were heading to Syria to join the ranks of the mainly Sunni rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect derives from Shi'ite Islam.

Shi'ite fighters from Iraq have also joined the conflict on Assad's side, along with Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

Insurgents in Iraq have been recruiting from the country's Sunni minority, which increasingly resents Shi'ite domination since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.