Seven dead in Baghdad area attacks

BAGHDAD, Mar 14 (AFP): Bombings in and around Baghdad Friday, including blasts near two markets, killed seven people, the latest in a year-long surge in violence that authorities have failed to quell.
The bloodshed, at its highest level since 2008, came a day after a suicide car bomb went off in the middle of a wedding party convoy in the western town of Rawa, killing 15 people, including women and children.
The unrest, which comes barely six weeks before parliamentary elections, is driven principally by widespread discontent among Iraq's Sunni Arab minority and by the civil war in neighbouring Syria.
A car bomb Friday at a market in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite neighbourhood of Shuala killed three people, while another blast near a market in Rashid left one dead, security and medical officials said.
Bombings in Taji and Tarmiyah, just north of the capital, killed three others, including two soldiers.