A suicide car bomber killed 13 people outside a Shi'ite mosque northeast of Baghdad today and gunmen shot dead nine people in a bakery in the capital in the latest sectarian attacks following the January 30th election.
Meanwhile US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on an unannounced visit to Iraq, warned it would take time for Iraqi security forces to defeat the country's insurgents.
Iraq's 60 per cent Shi'ite majority, oppressed for decades under Saddam Hussein, is expected to dominate Iraqi politics following last month's historic polls.
Insurgents have mounted repeated attacks on Shi'ites, sparking fears the country could slide towards civil war.
Mr Rumsfeld, the highest-ranking American to visit since the election, landed before dawn in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad. He told US soldiers the poll had been a good day for Iraq "but there are still challenges ahead".
Police said 13 people were killed and 40 wounded in Balad Ruz when a suicide car bomb exploded outside a mosque.
Four of the dead were soldiers and at least three wounded were children. "I wish to lose my sight so that I won't see another person after you, my dear," cried one mourning woman in hospital. The worshippers had been leaving a Shi'ite ceremony for Ashura, one of the most holy events in the Shi'ite calendar that pays homage to the martyrdom of Imam Hussein in 680 AD.
Iraq plans to seal its borders next week to prevent pilgrims from flooding the country for the ceremony's climax. Last year suicide bombers blew themselves up among crowds of Ashura pilgrims in Baghdad and Kerbala, killing 171.
In Baghdad, gunmen burst into a Shi'ite bakery on Friday, opening fire on workers and killing at least nine.
The white walls, plastered with posters of Shi'ite clerics, were left smeared with blood. "I was just leaving my house which faces the bakery when I saw them shooting. They were masked and shouting Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest) ... as they were shooting," witness Atheer Abdul Amir told reporters.