Iraq bombings leave scores dead

Officials said 44 people died in a suicide attack targeting Shia pilgrims in the city of Nasiriya.

Earlier, at least 24 people were killed in a number of blasts in Shia areas of Baghdad.

Sectarian tensions have risen after the last US combat troops left in December and an arrest warrant was issued for Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi.

The BBC's Rafid Jabboori in Baghdad says Iraq is going through

a severe political crisis and the situation in the country is tense.

The Interior Ministry's National Centre for Operations said the number of dead in the Nasiriya attack was 44.

A provincial government website said pilgrims had been walking towards the holy city of Karbala when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt at a rest stop. More than 70 other people were wounded.

The Baghdad attacks targeted civilians in the Sadr City and Kadhimiya areas, the Interior Ministry said. At least 66 people were wounded.

The first two explosions struck Sadr City, killing at least nine people. The first bomb was on a motorbike which exploded near where labourers were gathering to look for work.

"There was a group of day labourers gathered, waiting to be hired for work. Someone brought his small motorcycle and parked it nearby. A few minutes later it blew up, killed some people, wounded others and burned some cars," a police officer told Reuters at the scene of the attack.

Some 30 minutes later a roadside bomb exploded near a tea shop.

Less than two hours after that blast, two car bombs exploded simultaneously in the Kadhimiya district killing 15 people, officials said.

Iraqi military spokesman Maj Gen Qassim al-Moussawi said the aim of the attacks was "to create sedition among the Iraqi people".

He said it was too early to say who was behind the bombings.

Iraq's power-sharing government has been in crisis since an arrest warrant was issued for Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi on terrorism charges two weeks ago. He has denied the accusations against him.

The al-Iraqiyya group, the main Sunni bloc in parliament, is boycotting the assembly in protest. It accuses Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, a Shia, of monopolising power.

Mr Hashemi is currently in Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, under the protection of the regional government. Mr Maliki has demanded that they give him up.

However, Kurdistan Regional President Masoud Barzani recently told the BBC that they had not received a request to extradite Mr Hashemi, only a letter to say he is forbidden from leaving the country.

Mr Barzani said "distrust" of Baghdad's judicial system was hampering efforts to resolve the crisis.

Labourer Ahmed Khalaf, speaking to AFP at the site of one of the Sadr City explosions on Thursday, said: "Political leaders fight each other for power, and we pay the price.

"How is it our fault if al-Hashemi is wanted, or someone else is wanted?" he asked. "Why should we pay instead of them?"