At least 31 people were killed and 67 wounded in several attacks across Iraq today.
In the worst attack, 12 people were killed when a suicide bomber drove his car into a restaurant in the town of Tuz Khurmatu.
Police said the bodyguards of the Kurdish deputy prime minister, Rowsch Shways, were eating in the restaurant but Mr Shways was not there. 38 others were wounded in the attack.
Elsewhere, four people including the deputy head of the local town council were killed in a car bomb attack on a convoy of local government vehicles in Baquba.
A third attacker detonated his car at the gates of a state-owned oil firm in Kirkuk, killing one person and wounding 11 others.
In Mosul five people died in a double motorcycle bombing in front of a cafe near a police station. 13 people were wounded.
Later in the same city, two firefights between US and Iraqi soldiers and insurgents resulted in the deaths of two Iraqi troops and a gunman, as well as a Turkish driver.
In Siniyah, an Iraqi soldier died and another was injured during a mortar attack on their base, and further north in the Chorgat region four civilians were killed in a roadside bombing.
Today's bloodshed came after the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari vowed that all groups, including those leading the attacks, would be included in the political process in the country.
