(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-09-27 03:22

BAGHDAD - Attackers unleashed a slew of explosions Wednesday across Iraq, killing more than 50 people and injuring about 70 in the bloodiest day over the past two weeks.

Two car bombs went off simultaneously at a market in Bayaa, a Shiite district in southwestern Baghdad, at dusk when people were about to have their dinner in the holy month of Ramadan. The explosions killed at least 32 people and left 28 injured, police said.

"There was an increase in violence in the past few days. We had been expecting it," U.S. military spokesman Major General Kevin Bergner said in Baghdad.

A suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden car into an Iraqi Army patrol in Mosul of the northern Nineveh province and blew it up in the afternoon, killing three civilians and wounding a soldier, a police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, another suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into a court building under construction in the al-Maliyah district in southern Mosul, killing three people and injuring 47 others, most of whom were workers in the building.

In addition, the security forces foiled another suicide truck bomb attack when policemen in western Mosul shot dead a truck driver before he reached the target.

The source quoted Duraid Kashmoulah, governor of Mosul, as saying that a curfew was imposed on the city of Mosul until further notice due to the recent security deterioration that claimed hundreds of lives.

Earlier Wednesday, a suicide truck bomb hit a house of a tribal leader in the Nineveh province, killing 10 people and wounding nine others.

The attack was followed by two car bomb blasts at a town in Baghdad's neighboring Salahudin province. At least seven people were killed and five others wounded.

Since the U.S. troops boosted security operations in June, Baghdad has seen a decrease of violence. Yet, bombing attacks became more frequent in other regions of the country.

The bloodshed on Wednesday punctuated the relative lull since the beginning of Ramadan or the month of fast on September 13, when a car bomb killed Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha, a powerful Sunni tribal leader in Anbar province, who echoed a U.S. campaign of driving out al-Qaida fighters acting in the region.

On Monday, a suspected al-Qaida suicide bomber torpedoed a reconciliation meeting between Sunni and Shiite Muslims near the city of Baquba. The explosion at a mosque, where the talks were being held, killed 28 people and wounded 34.