Car bombs in two towns south of Baghdad and in the Iraqi city of Najaf have killed 20 people and wounded 80, police and hospital sources said, in one of the most violent days of the past two weeks.
Ten people were killed and 18 others wounded when two explosions struck a popular coffee shop in the restive Iraqi province of Diyala, security sources said.
More than 30 bombs struck cities and towns across Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 52 people and wounding about 250, despite a massive security clampdown ahead of next week's Arab League summit in Baghdad.
A militia loyal to Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr freed an American former soldier on Saturday after holding him captive in Baghdad for nine months.
An Iraqi student has shot dead his American teacher and then killed himself in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, after what local authorities described as a personal quarrel.
Simultaneous early morning attacks on mostly Shi'ite targets across Iraq have killed at least 60 people and wounded dozens in one of the bloodiest days of violence since US troops pulled out in mid-December.
A suicide car bomber has struck a Shiite funeral procession, killing 33 people as suspected al-Qaeda militants stepped up apparent efforts to provoke a counterattack by Shiite militias on Sunnis that could pave the way toward open sectarian warfare now that US troops have left Iraq.
The United States has warned Iraq not to "blow this opportunity" to become a prosperous, unified nation, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, adding it must start to act like a democracy and embrace compromise.
A bomb has torn through a procession of Shiite pilgrims heading toward a largely Sunni town in southern Iraq, killing at least 53 people in the latest sign of a power struggle between rival Muslim sects that has escalated since the American military withdrawal.
Two bombs exploded near Shi'ite pilgrims travelling through Iraq's capital on Monday, killing at least 15 people and wounding 52 others, police and hospital sources said.
Bomb attacks in mainly Shi'ite Muslim areas of Iraq have killed at least 73 people and wounded scores, police and hospital sources said, raising fears of an increase in sectarian strife.
Last Thursday, there were 16 bomb blasts in Baghdad (72 people killed, 217 injured). On Friday, two big car bombs in Damascus killed 40 people and injured 150. Even for Iraq, where there are suicide bombs every week, that is impressive.
A wave of bombings has killed at least 72 people in Baghdad, the first attacks since Iraq's Shi'ite-led government was engulfed in a crisis that risks fracturing the country along sectarian and ethnic lines.
Two bomb blasts have killed at least 16 people in Baghdad in the latest large attack to hit the Iraqi capital in less than a week, hospital and police sources said.
A suicide bomber posing as a beggar detonated his explosives inside a main Baghdad Sunni mosque, killing at least 24 people, including an Iraqi lawmaker, and wounding more than 30 others, hospital and local officials said.
A relentless barrage of bombings has killed 63 people in the most sweeping and co-ordinated attack Iraq has seen in over a year, striking 17 cities from northern Sunni areas to the southern Shiite heartland.
Four bombs have ripped through Shiite neighbourhoods in Baghdad, killing at least 40 people in the worst violence the capital has seen in months, Iraqi officials said. An American civilian aid specialist working to improve education in Iraq was killed in a separate attack.
A triple bombing killed 27 people and wounded scores outside a police station, heightening tensions in a northern Iraqi city already on edge after a string of kidnappings and attacks against security officers.
Wearing military uniforms over explosives belts, gunmen held a local Iraqi government centre hostage on Tuesday in a grisly siege that ended with the deaths of at least 56 people, including three councilmen who were executed with gunshots to the head.
Iraq's dwindling Christian community was grieving and afraid after militants seized a Baghdad church during evening Mass, held the congregation hostage and triggered a raid by Iraqi security forces. The bloodbath left at least 58 people killed and 78 wounded - nearly everyone inside.
