A new series of attacks in Iraq has left at least 31 people dead today.
In Balad, north of Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew up his car outside an army officer's house, killing 15 people.
In the nearby town of Baquba, insurgents attacked soldiers and police with a suicide bomb, mortars and landmines, killing at least 16 people.
Al-Qaeda's wing in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility.
"The mujahideen ambushed a unit of the apostate guards in Baquba . . . and a brave lion carried out an attack on the riffraff and turned them into scattered fragments," Al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq said in an Internet statement.
Police in Baquba, a mixed Sunni and Shia town 65 kilometres northeast of Baghdad, said the attack began when five Iraqi soldiers were killed in an ambush. A suicide car bomb then hit police heading to reinforce the area, killing two.
Two roadside bombs later killed three people, and at least one mortar round landed in the town, police said.
Iraq's government issued new photographs today of Zarqawi, showing him with short hair and a cropped beard. They are among only a handful of images of the shadowy militant. The United States has offered $25 million for information leading to the capture or death of Zarqawi. The Iraqi government says his network is crumbling and that his capture is close.
But Zarqawi's group said in an Internet statement today that Zarqawi was safe and in good health, and leading fresh attacks on US and Iraqi forces.