Two bombs tore through a public square in the southern Iraqi city of Kut on Monday, killing at least 37 people in the worst in a string of bombings and suicide attacks across the country.
A roadside bomb exploded in Kut, a mainly Shi'ite Muslim city 150km southeast of Baghdad, followed by a car bomb when security forces arrived on the scene.
Dhiyauddin Jalil, a director of Wasit provincial health department, said at least 37 people were killed, and more than 68 were wounded in the blasts, Reuters reports.
Dozens more were killed on Monday in other bombings and attacks in other cities.
At least eight people were killed and 14 wounded when a suicide car bomber attacked a municipality building in the province of Diyala, police sources said.
The attack happened in Khan Bani Saad, about 30km northeast of Baghdad.
Two suicide bombers attacked an Iraqi counter-terrorism unit in Tikrit, 150km north of Baghdad, killing at least two policemen and wounding six in a failed attempt to free al Qaeda prisoners, a police official said.
In the southern holy Shi'ite city of Najaf, at least three people were killed and 19 wounded when two car bombs exploded, authorities said. Police said the bombs targeted a police building.
