At least 75 people have died in two separate suicide bomb attacks that targeted homeless families and Shi'ite pilgrims. Experts fear these type of attacks will increase when US troops pull out in 2011.
TONY EASTLEY: In the other refugee and military hotspot, Iraq, there have been two separate suicide bombings which have killed at least 75 people and injured scores more in the worst day of attacks in a year.
The first bomber blew himself up near a group of refugees who'd gathered to receive food aid in central Baghdad. The second attacked a restaurant north-east of the capital killing Iranian pilgrims.
Insurgents linked to Al Qaeda are suspected to be behind the bombings.
Jennifer Macey reports.
JENNIFER MACEY: Families left homeless by the sectarian fighting in Iraq were receiving food supplies from police and aid workers in central Baghdad when the first suicide bomber struck. Twenty-eight people died and 50 were injured. At least five children and two Red Crescent workers died in the attack.
Then a second suicide bomber blew himself up in a restaurant in Buquba north-east of the capital and on the road to the Iranian border. Forty-eight people died there - mostly Iranian Shi'ite pilgrims.
It's the deadliest day of attacks this year.
Mohammed Hafez is an associate professor of national security at the Naval Postgraduate School in California and has written a book on suicide bombers in Iraq.
MOHAMMED HAFEZ: First, we need to make clear that these attacks have not ceased; that they have been continuous even though there is a substantial decline in violence from their peaks in 2007. Nonetheless, these attacks are very serious because they threaten to unleash another wave of sectarian warfare.
Most of the attacks of recent days have been targeting Shi'ite civilians and we know from 2006 period that attacks on Shi'ites can create reprisals which produce overall sectarian strife in Iraq.
JENNIFER MACEY: He says the suicide bombers were most likely Sunni insurgents or from an umbrella group linked to Al Qaeda called the Islamic State of Iraq.
Iraqi security officials say they've arrested the leader of this group Abu Omar al Baghdadi but this hasn't been confirmed by the Iraqi army nor US officials.
Professor Hafez says even if he has been detained he doubts there's a link between his arrest and the suicide bombings.
MOHAMMED HAFEZ: Abu Omar al Baghdadi is this mysterious figure. Some have suggested that he may not even exist, that this is merely a name to mask the real identity of the leaders of Al Qaeda and Iraq which are foreign in origin.
But there is an individual that puts out statements, whether audio statements or written statements on a regular basis by the name of Abu Omar al Baghdadi. He is the head of the Islamic state of Iraq and this is an organisation that targets practically everyone.
It targets Sunni militias that have joined the Iraqi Government. It targets Shi'ites. It targets Americans. It targets everyone, really.
JENNIFER MACEY: Yet there's concern that these latest attacks are just a taste of what's to come when US combat troops pull out of urban areas by June this year and that the violence will spill over once US forces withdraw completely from Iraq in 2011.
But Professor Hafez says the US will most likely leave 50 000 troops in the country to help fight insurgents.
MOHAMMED HAFEZ: Insurgencies are a difficult thing to end. Al Qaeda and Iraq will no longer be a strategic threat for the Iraqi Government but it is an organisation that can kill a lot of people as we've seen today.
I think suicide bombings will continue in Iraq for some time to come but they are no longer, or I hope I should say that they are no longer the strategic threat that they once posed to Iraq.
TONY EASTLEY: Associate professor Mohammed Hafez from the Naval Postgraduate School in California ending that report by Jennifer Macey.