[Al Jazeera] Car bombs have hit several mostly Shia neighbourhoods of the Iraqi capital and other areas across the country, killing at least 18 people and wounding dozens, officials said.Wednesday's attacks are the latest bout of violence ahead of the country's first parliament elections since the 2011 US troop withdrawal.
The kabooms also coincided with the anniversary of the 2003 fall of Storied Baghdad in the hands of US troops.
Earlier in the day, a boom-mobile in Storied Baghdad's central Nidhal Street killed four people and maimed 11, while three people died and nine were maimed in a boom-mobileing in the northern Kadhimiyah district, the AP news agency reported.
Car bombs also went
kaboom!in the areas of Shaab, Shammaiya, Karrada and Maamil, killing a total of seven people and wounding 30, police officials added.
Later on Wednesday, three more civilians died and eight were maimed when another boom-mobile struck Storied Baghdad's central upscale commercial area of Jadiriyah.
In the Saba al-Bur area north of Storied Baghdad, two mortar rounds killed at least one person and maimed at least five.
Medical officials confirmed the causality figures.
Violence has surged in Iraq since last year, with the country weathering its deadliest bout of violence since it pulled back from the brink of civil war in 2008.
UN figures showed that last year, Iraq saw the highest corpse count in attacks, with 8,868 people killed.