Iraq attacks kill 71

A series of attacks that included nine car bombings killed 71 people Monday in Iraq, mostly in Shia areas, as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed politicians' "calls for violence." The bloody day started with two car bombs that killed 14 people and wounded 40 in Basra, according to a final toll given by health officials. Six further car bombings took place in mainly Shia areas of the capital, Baghdad, killing 29 people and injuring about 100, police said.
Attacks on checkpoints of the pro-government Sunni Sahwa militia in Baghdad, Balad and Samarra north of Baghdad killed six members of the force and wounded 12. In Hilla, a roadside bomb went off, followed by a suicide bomber attack on two mosques, killed six people and injured 70. Eight pilgrims, six of them Iranian, according to the independent al-Sumaria television, were killed when a car bomb blew up as their coach was passing near Balad. In Sunni-dominated Anbar province eight policemen were killed.