Al-Qaeda briefly planted its flag in Baghdad as militants killed 23 members of Iraq's security forces across the country.
The worst attack came in Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah when 16 Iraqi security forces were killed by what appeared to have been coordinated strikes by Al-Qaeda militants, who then planted their flag close to the site.
Earlier in the day, a suicide bomber drove a minibus into the main gate of an Iraqi Army base near Saddam Hussein's hometown Tikrit, killing four soldiers.
In the western city of Fallujah, 65 kilometers west of Baghdad, two roadside bombs targeting Iraqi Army patrols killed two Iraqi soldiers.
In the northern city of Mosul, a bomb attached to a police vehicle killed one policeman.
compiled from agency reports