Bombs killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens in northern and western Iraq today, but the Iraqi military said overall attacks across the country were down 85 per cent from a year ago.
Two blasts in quick succession in Falluja, in Iraq's western Anbar province, killed six people and wounded 18, police said.
One hit a police unit guarding a bank, they said. The second went off minutes later when a police convoy came to evacuate casualties. Four policemen were among the dead.
Hours later, a suicide car bomber killed eight civilians and wounded 26 people in the northern city of Mosul, capital of Nineveh province, police said.
The attack targeted the convoy of Major-General Riyadh Jalal Tawfiq, the province's army commander, said a security spokesman in the city.
Neither US nor Iraqi security officials said who was behind the attacks, but Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda is often blamed for bombings in Anbar and Mosul.
The US military says violence in Iraq has dropped to a four-year low.
Major-General Qassim Moussawi, spokesman for Iraqi forces in Baghdad, said attacks across the country had fallen 85 per cent in the past year. He said there were an average of 25 attacks a day in June compared to 160 daily a year ago.
The US has so far refused an Iraqi request to set a date for the withdrawal of its troops from the country.
The White House said today it was opposed to the setting an "arbitrary" date after Iraqi officials called for a timetable as part of a security agreement being negotiated with Washington.
"We have always been opposed and remain so to an arbitrary withdrawal date," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said to reporters traveling with President George W. Bush in Japan.
The United States believes those decisions should be "based on conditions on the ground" and Iraqi officials agree with that, she said.
Iraq's national security adviser yesterday said Iraq would not accept any security agreement with the United States unless it included dates for the withdrawal of foreign forces. But the government's spokesman said any timetable would depend on security conditions on the ground.
Their differences underscored the debate in Baghdad over the security pact with Washington that will provide a legal basis for US troops to remain when a UN mandate expires at the end of the year
The White House said the statements from Iraqi officials about a timetable for troop withdrawal partly reflected improvements in the security situation in Iraq.
"I think that is a reflection of first and foremost the positive developments that we've seen recently in Iraq, but in addition to that, the negotiations are intensifying," Mr Perino said.