At least 67 killed in Iraq violence

BAGHDADNAMPA/AFP Attacks mainly targeting Shiite-majority areas of Iraq killed at least 57 people on Monday, and security forces killed 10 militants, officials said, as the interior ministry warned of civil war. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also warned that Iraq was "on the brink", with the country suffering its worst wave of violence since 2008, when it was emerging from a bloody sectarian conflict. On Monday, 11 car bombs hit nine different areas of Baghdad, seven of them Shiite-majority, while another exploded in Mahmudiyah south of the capital. Two more car bombs exploded in Kut, while two hit Samawa and another detonated in Basra, all south of Baghdad. Bombings elsewhere in Iraq killed six police, among them a lieutenant colonel and a captain, in addition to a soldier and two civilians. More than 800 people have now been killed this month, and over 3 000 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources. The violence has included sophisticated, highly coordinated attacks, such as assaults on two prisons that saw more than 500 inmates, including senior Al-Qaeda members, escape. The interior ministry warned of the consequences of the bloodshed. Iraq is faced with "open war waged by the forces of bloody sectarianism aiming to plunge the country into chaos and reproduce civil war", the ministry said in a statement.