A suicide bomber killed 22 people south of Baghdad today by offering poor Shia workers day labouring jobs and then detonating explosives packed inside his minibus as the crowd gathered around it.
On a day when Syria's foreign minister was due on a rare visit to hear Iraqi and US concern about Sunni suicide bombers coming in through Syria, a Sunni Islamist group claimed the attack in Hilla, calling it revenge for a mass kidnap from a Sunni-run Baghdad ministry building last week.
Three near-simultaneous explosions, at least two of them car bombs, killed at least six people and wounded 30 at a bus station in mainly Shia east Baghdad.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem was due to fly to Baghdad for talks with Iraqi leaders likely to focus on repeated US and Iraqi complaints that Damascus has done too little to stop the flow of insurgents and weapons across its border.
With US President George W. Bush looking for fresh ideas that could help calm violence and let American troops go home, there have been new calls from his allies and in Washington for him to talk to Syria and Iran, both at loggerheads with the United States and blamed by it for fomenting trouble in Iraq.
Sunni Muslim insurgents are battling Iraqi and US forces. The US military said it killed eight insurgents in air and ground attacks in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, yesterday after troops came under mortar and rocket-propelled grenade fire.
Police reported clashes and a killing spree the same day by rebels in the violent city of Baquba, northeast of the capital.