The Iraqi capital, Baghdad, experienced a series of violent attacks on Wednesday when eight car bombs and two mortar shells killed as many as 25 people in episodes around the city, according to security personnel. Most of the attacks appeared to target Shiite areas of the capital, such as Kadhimiya, Shaab, Shamaiya and Sadr City. Another bomb placed in a car parked near a school in southern Iraq, in Kut, killed five civilians and wounded 18 others, according to a security official. The attacks come on the 11th anniversary of the toppling of a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, an event which many Iraqis regard as the fall of Baghdad, and just weeks before the first parliamentary elections since the United States withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. The vote is scheduled for the end of the month.