Over fifty people were killed in two separate car bomb attacks in Iraq today.
At least 40 people died and another 70 were wounded in a car bombing outside a provincial government office in the Iraqi city of Baquba.
Women injured in a car bomb attack are brought to a hospital in Baquba today
Police said they expected the death toll to rise from the attack in the capital of Diyala province, one of the most volatile parts of Iraq and where US and Iraqi security forces have launched a series of operations against al-Qaeda militants.
In Ramadi, 14 people died when a car exploded outside a restaurant west of the city centre around lunchtime. Ramadi is the capital of Anbar province.
Al-Qaeda, which is suspected of carrying out today's attacks, has regrouped in provinces north of Baghdad such as Diyala after being pushed out of western Anbar province and the capital by a "surge" of US forces in Iraq during the past year.
Violence had dropped off in Iraq's north in recent weeks, with most attention focused on fighting in the south and in Baghdad between security forces and the Mahdi Army militia of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
A suicide attack and two car bombs killed 18 people in northern Iraq yesterday. The dead included 12 members of Iraq's Kurdish Peshmerga security force, who were in a truck near the Syrian border when a car bomb exploded as they passed by.