Civil war fears grow as Iraq blasts kill 56

TWO explosions hit Shi’ite targets in war-torn Iraq after sundown yesterday, killing at least 15 people and raising the death toll for the day to at least 56.

Police officials said either a car bomb or a mortar had hit the Abdel Hadi Chalabi mosque in the Hurriyah neighbourhood of Baghdad, killing 14 and wounding 62. Mortar fire at the Imam Kadhim shrine in the Kazimiyah neighbourhood on the opposite side of the Tigris River killed one and wounded 10.

A Sunni mosque in the Hurriyah neighbourhood had been bombed before dawn yesterday.