bombings hit Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 57 people

The apparently coordinated bombings were the first sign of rising violenceafter Prime Minister Nurial-Maliki moved to sideline two Sunni Muslim leaders, just a few years aftersectarian bloodletting drove Iraq to the edge of civil war.
At least 18 people were killed when a suicide bomber driving an ambulancedetonated the vehicle near a government office in the Karrada district, sendingup a dust cloud and scattering car parts into a kindergarten, police and healthofficials said.
"We heard the sound of a car driving, and then car brakes, then a hugeexplosion, all our windows and doors are blown out, black smoke filled ourapartment," said Maysoun Kamal, who lives in a Karrada compound.

In total at least 57 people were killed and 179 were wounded in more thanten explosions in Baghdad, an Iraqi health ministry spokesman said.
Two roadside bombs struck the southwestern Amil district, killing at leastseven people and wounding 21 others, while a car bomb blew up in a Shi'iteneighbourhood in Doura in the south, killing three people and wounding six,police said.
More bombs ripped into the central Alawi area, Shaab and Shula in the north,all mainly Shi'ite areas, and a roadside bomb killed one and wounded five nearthe Sunni neighbourhood of Adhamiya, police said.
Violence in Iraq has ebbed since the height of sectarian violence in 2006-2007, when suicidebombers and hit squads targeted Sunni and Shi'ite communities in attacks thatkilled thousands of people.
Iraq isstill fighting a stubborn, lower-grade insurgency with Sunni Islamists tiedto al Qaeda and Shi'ite militias, who U.S. officials say are backed by Iran,still staging daily attacks.
U.S. TROOPS OUT ONLY DAYS AGO
The last few thousand American troops pulled out of Iraq over the weekend,nearly nine years after the invasion that toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein. ManyIraqis had said they feared a return to sectarian violence without a U.S.military buffer.
Just days after the withdrawal, Iraq's fragile power-sharing government isgrappling with its worst turmoil since its formation a year ago. Shi'ite, Sunniand Kurdish blocs share out government posts in a unwieldy system that has beenimpaired by political infighting since it began.
Maliki this week sought the arrest of Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemion charges he organised assassinations and bombings, and he asked parliament tofire his Sunni deputy Saleh al-Mutlaq after he likened Maliki to Saddam.
The moves against the senior Sunni leaders are stirring sectarian tensions becauseSunnis fear the prime minister wants to consolidate Shi'ite control.
Iraq's Sunni minority have felt marginalised since the rise of the Shi'itemajority in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. Many Sunnis feel they have beenshunted aside in the power-sharing agreement that Washington touts as a youngdemocracy.
Thursday's attacks represented the first major assault in Baghdad sinceNovember when three bombs exploded in a commercial district and another blasthit the city's western outskirts on Saturday, killing at least 13 people.
In October, bomb attacks on a busy commercial street in northeastern Baghdadkilled at least 30, with scores wounded.