A group headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for today's wave of attacks across Iraq, which killed 85 people.
A website statement said the attacks were launched by Jama'at al-Tawhid and Jihad.
The attacks were apparently aimed at sabotaging the handover to Iraqi rule in six days' time. Guerrillas struck in Baquba, Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul and Baghdad.
Three US soldiers were among the dead. Another 320 people were injured.
The Iraqi Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, has said he believes a group linked to the Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was behind the worst of the attacks - a series of car bomb explosions in Mosul.
In the northern city of Mosul, at least 44 people are known to have been killed and 216 wounded in up to seven bomb blasts.
At least nine people were killed in fighting involving US troops in Fallujah and Ramadi, and a US Cobra helicopter was shot down near Fallujah.
13 more people were killed in Baquba, where US aircraft dropped several heavy bombs.
Meanwhile, four Iraqis were killed when a checkpoint was attacked in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.
In a separate development, NATO's Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, has said the alliance's leaders, who are meeting next week in Istanbul, are likely to agree to a request from Iraq's interim government to train its security forces.
