Deadly car bombs strike city in Syria

A pair of car bombs exploded Wednesday in a busy residential district in the central Syrian city of Homs, killing at least 25 civilians and wounding more than 100, Syria’s official media reported.

The state news agency blamed the attacks on “terrorists,” the government’s standard description of rebels fighting to oust the government of President Bashar Assad.

A pro-opposition group, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also reported the two car bomb attacks.

Syrian state television aired scenes of charred vehicles, blood-spattered streets and black smoke pouring from damaged buildings as firefighters rushed to douse blazes.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombings, the first of which occurred when a parked car exploded on a busy street near a popular sweet shop, state media reported. The second bomb detonated nearby about half an hour later as people gathered near the site of the initial attack, according to government reports.

The vehicles exploded in the city’s Karm al-Louz district, home to many members of the minority Alawite sect, to which Assad belongs.

In Baghdad, car bombs hit several mostly Shiite neighborhoods of the Iraqi capital and a town south of there, killing at least 34 people and wounding dozens, officials said, the latest bout of violence ahead of the country’s first parliamentary elections since the 2011 U.S. troop withdrawal.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks but the bombings bore the hallmarks of an al-Qaida-inspired group and other Sunni insurgents, who frequently use suicide and car bombs to target public areas and government buildings in their bid to undermine confidence in the Shiite-led government.

The explosions also coincided with the anniversary of the 2003 fall of Baghdad in the hands of U.S. troops.

The deadliest attack in Iraq took place in Numaniyah, about 50 miles south of Baghdad, where a bomb first went off in a busy commercial area, followed by a car bomb that exploded as people gathered to help the victims from the first blast. In all, five people were killed and 17 were wounded, police said.

In Islamabad, a bomb ripped through a fruit and vegetable market on the outskirts of Pakistan’s capital, killing at least 21 people and wounding dozens more in a new attack in a city that until recently had remained relatively removed from shootings and bombings that plague other parts of the country.

A separatist group from the ethnic Baluch minority claimed responsibility for the attack. Baluch separatists have been fighting a bloody insurgency for years in their heartland in the southwest of the country.

The bomb went off as morning shoppers were buying supplies at the outdoor market. The power of the blast sent cartons of fruit and vegetables flying. Police quickly cordoned off the scene, which was littered with guavas, shoes and prayer caps.