...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
killed eight people on Friday, on the eve of Iraq's first polls since U.S. troops withdrew and a day after a blast in a cafe in the capital left 27 dead.
Four mortars struck the Abu Tamur mosque in the town of Khales, which lies in restive Diyala province, as worshippers were departing following mid-day Friday prayers, a police colonel and a doctor said.
The mortars killed seven people and maimed 12 others, they said.
And in the disputed northern city of Kirkuk,
... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time...
a bombing at a Shiite mosque that also houses offices of the political movement loyal to anti-U.S. holy man
Moqtada Tateral-Sadr
... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010. He spends most of his time in Iran, safely out of the line of fire, where he's learning to be an ayatollah...
killed one person and maimed 15, a Sadrist official and a medic said.
The latest attacks came after a bombing at a billiards cafe in west Storied Baghdad killed 27 people late on Thursday night, the country's deadliest single attack in a month.
The latest deaths bring to 118 the number of people killed since Sunday, an average of around 20 per day, according to Agence La Belle France Presse figures.
No group immediately grabbed credit for the latest attacks, but Sunni forces of Evil linked to al-Qaeda frequently carry out bombings in both Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods across Iraq, in a bid to undermine confidence in the government and security forces.