Attack part of a wave of violence since April as Syria's war pressures Iraq's fragile balance
BAGHDAD, June 10 (Reuters) - Three car bombs, one detonated by a suicide bomber, tore through a busy food market in a Shi'ite Muslim town north of Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 13 people in growing sectarian unrest.
No group claimed the attack on Jadidat al-Shatt in Diyala province, 40 km (25 miles) north of the capital. Officials blame a surge in violence on Sunni insurgents determined to tip the country back into civil war.
Officials said two car bombs were parked near the market and a suicide bomber in another vehicle detonated his explosives. The dead and wounded lay among the wreckage of fruit and vegetable stalls.
"I was selling watermelon and suddenly I heard a powerful blast at the entrance of the market. I fled from dust and smoke when a second blast turned the place into hell," said Hassan Hadi, a wounded farmer being treated in hospital.
"I was hit in my leg and lay down in shock."
Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in attacks since April, the highest toll since inter-communal bloodletting five years ago that killed tens of thousands and partitioned Baghdad into districts based on religious sect.
Growing violence has tracked rising political tensions between Shi'ite majority leaders and minority Sunnis who fear their sect has been marginalised since the fall of Saddam Hussein after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
The war in neighbouring Syria, where Shi'ite Iran and the region's Sunni Gulf powers are backing opposing sides, has helped pressure Iraq's own fragile sectarian and ethnic balance.
Invigorated by Syria's mostly Sunni revolt and Iraqi Sunni discontent, al Qaeda's local wing, Islamic State of Iraq, is regaining ground lost during its war with U.S. troops who left Iraq in December 2011. (Reporting by a Reuters correspondent in Baquba and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
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