At least 10 people were killed by a car bomb in central Baghdad, Iraqi police said, raising the number of violent deaths around the country today to at least 25.
Twenty-five people were wounded by the blast which ripped through shops and restaurants near Hussein Square in Baghdad's mainly Shi'ite Jadriya district.
In other violence, seven Kurdish guards were killed near the Iranian border in normally calm northern Iraq, in an attack police and a local official blamed on al Qaeda-linked militants.
Gunmen ambushed the patrol in a mountainous region near the border with Iran and fighting lasted for more than an hour, said Ghareb Ali, the mayor of Panjwin, a nearby town.
"It was the most violent attack since 2003," said Mr Ali, who blamed the al Qaeda linked Kurdistan Brigade for the ambush.
The semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan has been largely spared the sectarian bloodshed in large parts of the rest of Iraq.
Also in the North of the country an Iraqi policeman killed and another wounded by a roadside bomb in Mosul. While in Tal Afar, two civilians were killed and three hurt by a roadside bomb and a truck driver died in a similar incident in the town of Baiji.
In the west, a former lieutenant in old Iraqi army was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Fallujah. And further south gunmen shot the wife an 8-year-old son of the former mayor of Aziziyah.
Meanwhile, eight bodies found in the Washash district of west Baghdad, police said. They had been tortured and shot.
US and Iraqi forces have launched a major clampdown in and around Baghdad to drive out militants blamed for deadly bomb attacks which are fanning sectarian hatred.
US commanders warn that Iraqi forces are not ready to handle security alone, in part because of tension between ordinary Iraqis and police, who the United States says have often been infiltrated by Shi'ite militia.
"There is a certain element of the Iraqi security forces and in particular the Iraqi police ... that have had shortfalls in terms of loyalty ... to the central government," Rear Admiral Mark Fox, the top military spokesman in Iraq, told a news conference.
He said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was the only one with the power sort out the matter. Mr Maliki said on Saturday that Iraqi security forces were ready to take over from the Americans at "any time", but also stressed that they needed more training.