At least 27 people were also killed by twin explosions in a busy market area in central Baghdad on New Year's Eve, while another seven died on Sunday in an attack south of the Shiite shrine city of Najaf. Three bombs killed 29 people in the capital on December 31 and an attack by two suicide bombers at a checkpoint the following day in the southern city of Najaf -- a holy city for Shi'a -- killed at least eight people. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a series of deadly attacks in Iraq since mid-October including three since New Year's Eve.
A series of attacks kill at least 70 people and injure more than 100 others in mostly Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, Iraq.