At least 15 people were killed and more than 30 wounded in two seperate car bomb attacks in Iraq, police said.
A suicide car bomber killed nine people and wounded 11 others in an attack at a police station north of Baghdad. Four of those killed in the attack were police.
The blast, at about 8am (0500 GMT) in the town of Shirqat, 300 km (190 miles) north of Baghdad in Salahuddin province, destroyed many shops in the area, a police source in Shirqat said. The death toll may rise, the source said.
Elsewhere, a car bomb killed six people and wounded 20 others in northern Iraq. The second attack of the day took place in the town of Sinjar, 390 km (240 miles) northwest of Baghdad, which is home to Yazidis, members of a pre-Islamic Kurdish sect.
At least 21 people were killed in two suicide attacks in Sinjar earlier this month, part of a wave of violence that has hit ethnically and religiously mixed northern Nineveh province.
Iraq is struggling to recover from a rash of violence that has raised questions about the durability of security gains, including truck bomb attacks that killed almost 100 people near government ministries on August 19th.
There also has been a series of attacks in areas of northern Iraq where tension is high between majority Arabs, ethnic Kurds and other minorities. Much of the violence has taken place in Nineveh province, near Shirqat.
The government, looking toward a general election in January, is striving to show Iraqis that it is on top of the security situation as American troops prepare to withdraw gradually by the end of 2011.
Separately,Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite Muslim leaders, was buried in the holy city of Najaf today, three days after his death cast more uncertainty over the country's turbulent politics.
Mr Hakim (59), a popular cleric who headed the powerful Shi'ite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (ISCI), died on Wednesday in Tehran, where he was being treated for lung cancer.
He was buried beside his elder brother Muhammad Baqer al-Hakim, who was killed in a 2003 bombing that was claimed by al Qaeda.
Mr Hakim took charge of ISCI from his brother.
Thousands of Hakim's supporters in black or white robes thronged streets beside a motorcade carrying his coffin to the burial site. They waved green flags and held banners. One read: "Goodbye, Abu Ammar", an affectionate name for the cleric.
Some prayed, others beat their heads and chests with their hands in a traditional mourning ritual. One of his aides placed his trademark black turban on the car's roof.
Supporters carried his coffin, wrapped in a green shroud to the Imam Ali shrine, one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest sites. He was interred in a cemetery about a mile (1.5 km) away.
ISCI on Monday said it would lead a new, mostly Shi'ite alliance to compete in January's national polls without prime minister Nuri al-Maliki's small Dawa party, raising questions about possible disunity amongst Iraq's Shi'ite majority.
Mr Hakim's son, Ammar al-Hakim, who has been groomed to take over ISCI but may yet face internal leadership challenges, has urged those outside the new alliance to join it.
ISCI was founded in Iran in exile during Iraqi Sunni leader Saddam Hussein's rule. It has close ties to Iran's rulers.
ISCI and Mr Maliki's Dawa party swept to power in 2005 polls as part of a broad Shi'ite coalition, but over the past year wrangling over alliances has intensified.
Violence has fallen overall in Iraq, but a spike in major attacks in the past month is expected to continue ahead of the polls and as US forces prepare to withdraw by the end of 2011.
Reuters