Car bombs ripped through two Iraqi cities on Monday, killing at least 11 people, Iraq officials said, in the latest attacks targeting the country's Shias a month after the US military withdrawal. Violence has surged across Iraq since the last American troops left the country. A string of bombings has left at least 150 people dead since the beginning of the year.
Most of the attacks appear aimed at Iraq's Shia majority, suggesting Sunni insurgents are seeking to undermine the Shia-dominated government. Iraq is also facing a sectarian political crisis after the Shia-dominated government charged Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi with running death squads, issuing an arrest warrant against him just as the last US soldiers crossed into neighbouring Kuwait last month. The first blast on Monday morning struck a Shia district outside of Mosul, a predominantly Sunni city some 225 miles (360 kilometers) north-west of Baghdad.