13 killed, dozens injured in twin Iraq blasts

At least 13 people have been killed and dozens have been wounded in two separate blasts in Baghdad, Iraq.

A car bomb near a bus terminal in central Baghdad detonated, killing at least nine people and injuring 16 others, police said, while in northern eastern Baghdad, another blast killed four people and wounded a further 14.

Moreover, in Sulaimaniyah,a sticky bomb targeting a general, damaged his vehicle but left him unharmed, emergency officials said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks.

However, reports suggest that the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL) gained ground over the past year in Anbar province bordering war-torn Syria.

Meanwhile, fighting had continued in the western province of Anbar against al-Qaeda-linked gunmen who have captured two major cities.

This is the latest of a series of attacks in the normally peaceful Kurdish region in recent months.

Bloodshed in Iraq has returned to its highest level in five years, a surge of violence partly fuelled by the war that began in Syria some months before US forces ended their nine-year occupation of Iraq in 2011. 

On January 1, ISIL seized control of two cities in Sunni-dominated Anbar, raising the stakes in a confrontation with the Shia-led government, which has vowed to eradicate al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The Iraqi army has deployed tanks and artillery around one of those cities, Fallujah, threatening to storm the town unless local tribesmen expel gunmen from the ISIL.