At least 43 people have been killed in bomb attacks across Iraq, with nine explosions in busy markets and commercial areas of the capital Baghdad
The deadliest attack was in the mainly Shia Muslim Shaab district of northern Baghdad, where twin car bombs killed eight people.
A sustained campaign of attacks since the start of the year has increased fears of wider conflict in a country where ethnic Kurds, Shia and Sunni Muslims have yet to find a stable power-sharing compromise.
Insurgents have been recruiting from Iraq's Sunni minority, which resents Shia domination since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Sectarian tensions have been inflamed by the civil war in neighbouring Syria, which is fast spreading into a region-wide proxy war, drawing in Shia and Sunni fighters from Iraq and elsewhere to fight on opposite sides of the conflict.
