BAGHDAD - At least 15 people were killed and 57 wounded in two bomb blasts Sunday evening in the northern Baghdad district of Shula, an interior ministry source said.
The explosions, in a mixed Shiite-Sunni district of the Iraqi capital, apparently targeted an area close to the Shiite Hussayniah al-Beit mosque.
On Friday, nine people were killed and some 26 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside another Shiite mosque during the main weekly prayers.
The majority Shiites won control of parliament in January 30 elections, while the Sunni Arab minority, which dominated the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein and all previous Iraqi governments, largely boycotted the poll.
The insurgency that has raged in Sunni areas since Saddam's ouster in 2003 has seen a growing resort to sectarian attacks.
"A bomb exploded and, when people ran out near the Hussayniah al-Beit mosque, a car driven by a suicide bomber ploughed into them," the interior ministry official said.
The wounded were rushed to two hospitals.
An official at the Nur hospital said he had received 15 dead and 23 wounded, adding that, according to survivors' testimony, the explosions occurred outside an ice cream parlour at around 8:00 pm (1600 GMT).
A defence ministry official said the two explosions occurred within three minutes of each other.
Shula district has seen mounting sectarian tensions in recent weeks, with Shiite leaders charging that Sunnis are bent on forcing them out of the area.
A local Sunni prayer leader said Friday that 46 members of his community had been killed over the past few months, including one on Thursday.
"I call on the attention of the world to say that Sunnis are facing a campaign of extermination," said Sheikh Ahmed Abdel Karim, a member of the Committee of Muslim Scholars, the main Sunni religious organisation.
"There's a hidden plan to force (Sunni) inhabitants out of the district," he said.
04/24/2005 18:28 GMT