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A series of shootings and bombings have left at least 33 people dead across Iraq, officials say. In Baghdad, the bodies of 18 people who had been executed were found in Shia and Sunni districts, including three men and two women from the same family. Meanwhile, nine people died and 20 were injured in the city of Ramadi, west of the capital, when suicide bombers and gunmen attacked two police stations. The UN says 979 people - including 158 police and 127 military personnel - were killed in violent attacks in October. More than 6,500 civilians have died since January, the highest annual toll since 2008.

A car bomb and a suicide bomber killed at least nine people and wounded 54 in northern Iraq on Saturday. The bombings took place in the town of Tuz Khurmato, north of the capital Baghdad. The first bomb detonated in a car in a busy market near a Shi'ite mosque after prayers and was quickly followed by a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest. Since U.S. troops withdrew at the end of 2011, attackers have been increasingly targeting markets, cafes and sports events, rather than just army checkpoints and police patrols. The victims have mainly been civilians in Shi'ite areas.

A car bomb ripped through a packed food market north of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 27 people. The attack occurred on Thursday in Sadiya, 65km northeast of Baghdad, a town in ethnically mixed Diyala province. Two police officers said witnesses told them that a man parked the truck containing the bomb in the market and asked workers to unload the vegetables before leaving the vehicle. The officers said at least 48 people were also wounded in the attack.

Two suicide bombers targeted Shi'ite Muslims in Iraq on Saturday, killing 60 people on the eve of the anniversary of one of their imams' deaths. In the northern city of Mosul, unidentified gunmen shot two Iraqi television journalists dead as they were filming. In Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a checkpoint, killing 48 Shi'ite pilgrims on their way to visit a shrine in the Kadhimiya district. Relations between Islam's two main denominations have come under acute strain from the conflict in Syria, which has drawn fighters from Iraq and the wider Middle East into a sectarian proxy war. Iraq's Sunni community has grown increasingly resentful of a government it accuses of marginalizing their sect since coming to power after the U.S.-led invasion that vanquished Saddam Hussein in 2003. More than 6,000 people have been killed in violence across the country this year.

A coordinated wave of bombings tore through Shiite Muslim areas in and around the Iraqi capital early Wednesday, killing at least 58 and wounding many more. The blasts, which came in quick succession, targeted residents out shopping and on their way to work. The attacks are the latest in a relentless wave of killing that has left thousands dead since April, marking the country's worst spate of bloodshed since 2008. Insurgents deployed explosives-laden cars, suicide bombers and other bombs Wednesday and targeted parking lots, outdoor markets and restaurants in predominantly Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the day's attacks, but they bore the hallmarks of the Iraqi branch of al-Qaida. More parked car bombs went off in outdoor markets in the sprawling slum of Sadr City, where five were killed and 20 were wounded. Similar attacks hit the northeastern neighborhood of Shula, killing three and wounding nine; the southeastern Jisr Diyala in an outdoor market, killing eight and wounding 22; and the eastern New Baghdad area, killing three and wounding 12. In Mahmoudiyah, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a restaurant, killing four and wounding 13.

A suicide bomber attacked an Iraqi army convoy in the northern city of Mosul killing at least 22 soldiers and three passers. The bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives up to a military convoy in the eastern Kokchali district of Mosul. A separate attack in western Mosul killed four policemen. It was not clear who was behind the blasts, but suicide bombings are the hallmark of al Qaeda. Mosul is the Iraq's third-largest city and capital of the Sunni-dominated Nineveh province. Al Qaeda have found willing recruits among Iraq's Sunni minority. Relations between Islam's two main denominations have been put under further strain from the civil war in Syria, which has drawn in Shi'ite and Sunni fighters from Iraq and beyond to fight against each other. Nearly 600 people have been killed in militant attacks across Iraq so far this month.

Multiple car bombings in predominantly Shi'ite districts of Baghdad killed at least 30 people on Saturday the latest in a series of attacks that threaten to sink Iraq once again into full-blown sectarian conflict. Most of the attacks struck in busy commercial areas. The deadliest explosion took place in the northern neighborhood of Tobchi, where 10 people were killed when a car bomb exploded in a busy commercial street. Another car bomb exploded in a commercial street in the Karrada neighborhood, killing at least four people. It was unclear who was behind the blasts. Sectarian tensions in Iraq have been inflamed by the civil war in neighboring Syria, which has drawn in Shi'ite and Sunni fighters from Iraq and beyond to fight on opposite sides of the conflict. More than 535 people have been killed in militant attacks in July so far, according to violence monitoring group Iraq Body Count.