A massive car bomb ripped through a funeral ceremony in a Shia district of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 48 people in Iraq's bloodiest day in more than two months. The blast was the deadliest in a series of bombings Thursday that claimed 53 lives across the city, and is the latest in a spate of violence in the past 10 days that has killed more people than in November or December.
The surge in attacks, mostly targeting majority Shia Muslims, comes little more than a month after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki formed a national unity government, ending nine months of deadlock following elections in March. An interior ministry official said the car bomb, which exploded outside a tent where mourners were gathered for a funeral ceremony, killed 48 people and wounded 121.