Bomaanslag Baghdad - 14 doden

Six explosions battered Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim neighborhoods across Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 14 people and extending a descent into the worst sectarian violence since the civil war five years ago.

The bloodletting reflects increasing tensions between Iraq's majority Shi'ite political leaders and the Sunni minority, many of whom believe they have been unfairly treated since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni.

But the civil war in Syria between Sunni rebels and President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect derives from Shi'ite Islam, has aggravated the strife in Iraq. Sunni and Shi'ite Iraqi fighters alike have been crossing the border to fight on opposing sides in Syria.