Militants kill at least 113 in Baghdad to trigger new sectarian war

Militants unleashed a wave of deadly attacks in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 113 people in Shiite neighborhoods in an apparent bid to provoke a new sectarian war in the country.

Seventeen car bombs and other blasts shook the city at sunset in one of the bloodiest days this year. The coordinated attacks, which bore the earmark of the Sunni Arab militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq, came just 48 hours after 58 people were killed after armed men seized a Baghdad church, Los Angeles Times reports.

Explosions struck the Shiite neighborhoods of Kadhimiya in the northwest; Amil, Bayaa and Shulaa in the southwest; Ur and Zuhour in the northeast; Sadr City, Kamaliya and Amin in the east; and Abu Dhsir in the southern part of the city.

Other blasts struck mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods, including Waziriya, Yarmouk, Jihad and Eghraiat. A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Eric Bloom, said the strikes are typical of al Qaeda in Iraq attacks, CNN reports.