Iraqis suffer deadliest day of 2012, with at least 103 dead in a coordinated series of bombings and shootings

Mohammed Jassim is treated at a hospital after a car bomb attack in Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, Iraq, Monday, July 23, 2012. An onslaught of bombings and shootings killed scores of people across Iraq on Monday, in the nation's deadliest day so far this year. The attacks come days after the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq declared a new offensive seeking to re-assert its might in the security vacuum left by the departing Americans. (AP Photo)

BAGHDAD (AP) - Bombings and shootings ripped across Iraq on Monday, killing at least 103 people in the deadliest day this year. The coordinated attacks in 13 cities sent a chilling warning that al Qaeda is slowly resurging in the security vacuum created by a weak government in Baghdad and the departure of the U.S. military seven months ago.

The attacks come days after the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq declared a new offensive and warned in a statement that the militant group is reorganizing in areas from which it retreated before U.S. troops left the country last December.

Al Qaeda has been seeking to re-assert its might in the security vacuum left by the departing Americans, seizing on Baghdad's fragmented government and the surge of Sunni rebels in neighboring Syria to sow instability across Iraq.

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