BAGHDAD — Bombs exploded at a crowded Baghdad restaurant and a near police patrol on Thursday, among attacks that killed at least 18 people and wounded 53 in Iraq’s bloodiest day in more than a month, police and hospital medics said.Five blasts hit the capital, and the northern city of Mosul was the scene of a fatal shooting attack.
In northwest Baghdad, a parked car exploded outside a busy restaurant in the neighborhood of Shula, killing 13 people and wounding 37, police officials said.
Naseer Ali, owner of a grocery shop in Shula, said he was about 150 meters (yards) from the restaurant when the blast went off. Ali said he and others rushed to help the victims before the ambulances arrived. Ali said he is worried the level of violence in Baghdad will return to what it was several years ago, in part because of the growing sectarian divide underlying a months-long paralysis of IraqÂ’s government.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, a parked car blew up near the home of Jamal-Din Mohammed, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, killing a civilian and wounding four people, including two guards protecting MohammedÂ’s house.
Earlier Thursday, explosions hit two adjacent homes of Baghdad policemen in the neighborhood of Amariyah, killing two people and wounding nine, among them three children. One of the policemen was killed and the other was wounded.
A fifth attack targeted a police patrol in Baghdad, killing a policeman and wounding three officers.
In Mosul, about 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, a police major was killed when gunmen sprayed his car with bullets in a drive-by-shooting, police said. Medics at nearby hospitals confirmed the casualties.