Suicide bomber attacks Baghdad intelligence headquarters, eight dead

[August 23, 2014]  BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber rammed a vehicle into an intelligence headquarters in Baghdad on Saturday, killing at least eight people, police and medical sources said.

The attack came a day after Shi'ite militiamen machinegunned 68 Sunni worshipers at a village mosque in Diyala Province, raising the prospect of revenge attacks as politicians try to form a government capable of countering Islamic State militants.

An advance by Islamic State through northern Iraq has alarmed the Baghdad government and its Western allies and drawn airstrikes in Iraq for the first time since the withdrawal of American troops in 2011.

Although the air campaign has caused a few setbacks for Islamic State, they do not address the wider problem of sectarian warfare which the group has fueled with attacks on Shi'ites.

Bombings, kidnappings and execution-style shootings occur almost daily, echoing the dark days of 2006-2007, the peak of a sectarian civil war.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Toby Chopra)

[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.