Al Qaeda affiliate claims attacks against Shi'ites in Baghdad

An al Qaeda affiliate has claimed responsibility for a series of car bombs that killed around 60 people in predominantly Shi'ite districts of the Iraqi capital last week.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which was formed earlier this year through a merger between al Qaeda's Syrian and Iraqi branches, said it had carried out the attacks in response to the Shi'ite-led government's tightening security measures. (Reuters)