Bombings in Iraq, including two car bombs at a sheep market, killed at least eight people and wounded dozens more on Friday, security and medical officials said. Brigadier General Abdul Jalil al-Assadi, the police chief of Diwaniyah province, said the car bombs went off at about 7:30 am (0430 GMT) in the market, south of the province's capital of the same name. Dr Adnan Turki, director of the Diwaniyah health department, put the toll from the blasts at six dead and 60 wounded, revising an earlier count.

Bombings in and around Baghdad, including two car bombs near a football field, killed at least 23 people on Thursday, while three people were shot dead in north Iraq, security and medical officials said. With the latest violence, more than 210 people have been killed and over 550 wounded in attacks in February, according to an AFP toll based on security and medical sources. An interior ministry official said one car bomb exploded near a football field in the Shuala area of Baghdad, followed by a second after security forces arrived at the scene.

A suicide car bomb near an army base in north Iraq killed at least four people on Monday, security officials said, the latest in an uptick in violence nationwide amid a political crisis. The blast struck in the al-Muthanna area of Mosul, which lies 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of Baghdad, killing four people and wounding five others, according to security and medical officials.

* Simultaneous bomb attacks at Baghdad pet market kill 16 * Fifteen dead at vegetable market south of the capital * Sunni protests are increasing tensions ahead of April vote (Updates death toll, adds blast in Kerbala, details) By Kareem Raheem BAGHDAD, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Five car bombs killed at least 34 people in Shi'ite areas of Iraq on Friday, police and medics said, as sectarian and ethnic tensions intensify ahead of provincial elections in April.