~Barack Obama, December 14, 2011.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – A wave of car bombings rocked central and northern Iraq on Sunday, killing at least 39 people and extending the deadliest eruption of violence to hit the country in years.
Attackers initially targeted market-goers early in the morning, then turned their sights on police posts after sunset. Security forces scrambled to contain the violence, blocking a key road in central Iraq and imposing a curfew in the former Sunni insurgent stronghold of Mosul after the blasts went off.
Killing in Iraq has spiked to levels not seen since 2008. The surge in bloodshed, which follows months of protests by the country's Sunni Arab minority against the Shiite-led government, is raising fears that Iraq is heading for another bout of uncontrollable sectarian violence.
The upsurge comes as foreign fighters are increasingly pouring into neighboring Syria, where a grueling civil war has taken on sectarian overtones similar to those that pushed Iraq to the brink of its own civil war in 2006 and 2007.
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