BAGHDAD: Coordinated car bombs ripped through mostly Shia neighbourhoods in the Baghdad area during rush hour on Wednesday, killing at least 30 people, the latest in spiralling violence in recent months. The blasts came despite widely publicised operations carried out by security forces targeting militants in the capital and to the north and west, though the government has faced criticism that it is not dealing with the root causes of Iraq's worst violence since 2008. The rise in unrest since the beginning of the year, with more than 3,700 people killed in 2013, has sparked concerns the country is teetering on the edge of a return to the brutal all-out sectarian war that plagued it in 2006 and 2007. At least 11 explosions -- most of them car bombs -- went off across the city in predominantly Shia neighbourhoods of the capital, as well as a confessionally mixed town just to the south of Baghdad, killing at least 30 people and wounding dozens of others, security and medical officials said. The deadliest attack struck in the Jisr al-Diyala neighbourhood of southeast Baghdad, with at least seven people killed and 21 others wounded, police and a hospital source said. But blasts also went off in other major Shia neighbourhoods including Kadhimiyah and Sadr City. The officials gave varying tolls, which is common in the chaotic aftermath of bombings in Baghdad, and the number of casualties appeared to be increasingly rapidly. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Sunni militants linked to Al-Qaeda frequently carry out such coordinated attacks targeting Shia Muslims, whom they regard as apostates.