BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Eight people died in two bombings five minutes apart on the main street of an Iraqi town south of Baghdad on Tuesday, nine days after an election Iraqis hoped would bring more stability and less sectarian conflict.

Police said attackers attached so-called sticky bombs to two cars carrying passengers in the town of Mussayab, about 60 km (40 miles) south of the capital.

Eleven others were wounded in the attacks, police said.

On Monday a car bomb killed seven people and wounded 20 others in the city of Falluja in Iraq's western Anbar province, an area that has been relatively quiet since Sunni Muslim tribal leaders turned on Islamist insurgent groups like al Qaeda.

Over the last two years violence in Iraq has fallen from the height of sectarian slaughter in 2006-07, but insurgents continue to mount lethal attacks in Baghdad, Anbar and other restive areas.

Elections officials are still counting votes from a March 7 parliamentary election that Iraqis hoped would bring more stable government as U.S. troops prepare to formally end combat operations in Iraq by the end of August and to pull out completely by the end of 2011.

(Writing by Jim Loney; editing by Robin Pomeroy)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/16/AR2010031601171_pf.html