A wave of attacks across Iraq has killed 54 people, while militia fired a barrage of mortars at Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
The deadliest attack was in the northern city of Mosul, where a suicide bomber crashed an explosives-laden truck into an Iraqi army base, triggering a blast that killed at least 12 soldiers and wounded dozens.
Iraqi and US troops are engaged in a major offensive against al-Qaeda in Mosul, which according to US commanders is al-Qaeda’s last urban stronghold in Iraq.
In an attack in the south of Baghdad, armed men travelling in three cars opened fire on crowds in a local market in the mixed Zafaraniyah neighbourhood, killing seven people and wounding 16.
In another attack in the Iraqi capital, a Katyusha rocket struck a residential building in largely Shia eastern Al-Kamaliyah neighbourhood, killing at least five people and wounding eight.
A car bomb near a bus stop in Baghdad's Shia al-Shuala neighbourhood killed five people and wounded eight others.
Further north, a roadside bomb near the town of al-Tuz, 75km south of Kirkuk, killed four Iraqi army personnel.
The US military, meanwhile, said its troops raided a ‘suicide bombing network’ in Diyala province northeast of the capital, killing 12 men, six of whom who had shaved their bodies in ritual preparation for becoming suicide bombers.
Assault weapons, ammunition and grenades were discovered on the site and destroyed.
Elsewhere in Iraq, four people, including a police officer, were killed in shootings, while in Baquba, two children died in a bomb blast.
The violence began with a barrage of mortar fire against Baghdad's Green Zone, the seat of the Iraqi government and the US embassy.
Two waves of mortar rounds struck the area this morning.
