Dozens of people were killed in attacks on Wednesday as violence returned to Baghdad and other flashpoint regions of Iraq after the lifting of a curfew for the Saddam Hussein verdict.
In the deadliest attack, two mortar rounds fell on the east Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, a stronghold of Shia militias, and a teeming slum that is home to more than two million people.
The shelling killed eight people and wounded 15.
The day began with a mortar attack near the health ministry, controlled by followers of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, in which three people were killed and five wounded, a security source said.
At about the same time, a car bomb exploded near the Nida mosque in the northern Sunni stronghold of Adhamiyah, killing one person.
Another mortar attack in downtown Jumhuriyah Street killed another person and wounded eight.
Not long afterwards, a pair of mortars crashed on Kadhimiyah neighbourhood, another Shia stronghold and home to two holy shrines, killing two people and wounding eight.
In Baghdad's south-west Al-Amil neighbourhood, three civilians were killed and another three wounded in a car bomb attack, while a member of the National Police was killed in a suicide car bombing against a southern checkpoint.
South of the city, in the rural area known as the 'triangle of death', a car bomb exploded in Mahmudiyah, killing six people and wounding another 26, said security sources. In nearby Iskandriyah, another bomb exploded in a residential area killing a man and his 13-year-old son.
In the flashpoint eastern region of Diyala, which was also under curfew along with Baghdad and Salaheddin provinces, at least 17 people were killed on Wednesday, including four in a single car bomb attack, police said.
The booby-trapped car exploded in a market of Muqdadiyah town, north of the provincial capital of Baquba, police said.
In a series of shootings across the province carried out by unknown gunmen, eight people were killed, including four in Baquba.
Five Iraqis were killed when clashes broke out between two Sunni Arab tribes -- Al-Azah and Al-Rabiya -- in the village of Dhida near Muqdadiyah, police said.
The fighting began after an ex-army general from one tribe was killed allegedly by members of the other tribe, police said.
Two police lieutenants were also killed in Saddam's northern hometown of Tikrit, while hundreds of his supporters demonstrated in Salaheddin against the death sentence.
Since Sunday's sentencing of Saddam to death for crimes against humanity, there have been demonstrations around the country both for and against the verdict.