Baghdad: Iraqi officials say the death toll from a series of bombings late Thursday targeting soccer fans watching a match in cafes in and around Baghdad has risen to 36.

The blasts on Thursday evening struck cafes in a mostly Sunni Arab neighbourhood of Baghdad, the central city of Baquba, and a town south of the capital, and came as Iraq grapples with a long-standing political deadlock and months of protests among the Sunni Arab community.

In Baquba, one of Iraq’s most violent cities, a car bomb went off near a cafe in the centre of the city and, when passers-by rushed to help the casualties, the attackers detonated a second bomb.

In all, 12 people were killed and 35 wounded, security and medical officials said.

Also on Thursday evening, in Baghdad’s predominantly Sunni Arab neighbourhood of Adhamiyah, a bomb went off near another cafe. Two blasts in the town of Jbela, south of the capital, wounded at least three.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, separate attacks killed a barber and wounded nine other people.

Meanwhile, twin bombings killed nine people and wounded 21 on Friday in Ramadi in Iraq’s western province of Anbar, most of them anti-Al Qaida militiamen, a security official said.

A bomb placed in the car of an officer of the Sahwa (militia) exploded before a second one, placed on the roadside, detonated among a group of people, Colonel Jubeir Nayef said.

“Nine people died and 21 were wounded, mostly members of Sahwa, when two bombs went off in Ramadi,” the main town in Anbar province west of Baghdad, the officer, himself a member of the militia, said.

Doctor Ahmad Al Aani, who works at Ramadi general hospital, confirmed the toll.

The Sahwa (Arabic for “awakening”) militias were formed in 2006 at the height of Iraq’s sectarian conflict to combat Al Qaida militants, and were led by tribal leaders in predominantly-Sunni areas of the country.

Since then, the militia has continued to fight Al Qaida by setting up road blocks and patrolling areas its fighters are known to operate in, but has itself been a target for the militants.

The Ramadi bombings came a day after a series of attacks mostly targeting cafes in and around Baghdad killed 17 people.