Baghdad: Car bombs killed eight people in a Shiite slum and gunmen mounted a deadly ambush on a bus in a Sunni area of the Capital on Monday as Iraq's sectarian violence showed no sign of easing.
On Tuesday, gunmen in Baghdad intercepted a minivan apparently carrying a coffin to the Shiite holy city of Najaf, killing all 10 people on board, police said.
The attackers pulled up in two cars and ordered the minivan to stop before opening fire in the volatile southern neighborhood of Dora, police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said, providing the casualty toll.
Mahmoud said he believed the passengers were taking a coffin to be buried in Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, a common practice among Shiites.
Also Tuesday, gunmen kidnapped an Iraqi diplomat who specializes in relations with Iran as he was driving near his home in Baghdad, the Foreign Ministry said.
Wissam Jabr al-Awadi was seized in the city's Amil neighborhood when kidnappers in three vehicles blocked his car on his way to work, police Lt. Mohammed Khayoun said.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry confirmed the abduction and said al-Awadi was an Iraqi consular in the Iranian city of Kermanshah, a city with a large Kurdish population near the border with Iraq.
Meanwhile, the coordinated bombing attack in Baghdad's Sadr City began at mid-morning when a car exploded near a repair shop. Minutes later, a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle in a crowd of curiosity-seekers who were milling around the first blast site, witnesses and police said.
In addition to the dead, 41 people were wounded, most of them in the second blast, police said.
Hours later, gunmen attacked a bus in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Amariyah in western Baghdad, killing the driver and six passengers, including a woman, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said. The attackers set fire to the bus before fleeing.
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The bombings in Sadr City may have been a reprisal for an attack Sunday in west Baghdad's Jihad neighborhood, where Shiite gunmen rampaged through the streets, stopping people, checking identification cards and killing people with clearly Sunni names.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki appealed Monday for unity, telling the Kurdish regional parliament in the northern city of Irbil that it is ''our destiny to work together to defeat terrorism.''
But there was no let-up in communal violence.
Late on Monday, gunmen believed to be Shiites blocked streets in the mostly Sunni area of Ghazaliyah and opened fire at a Sunni mosque, police said
A bomb exploded earlier in an outdoor market in central Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 18, police Col.
Adnan al-Obeidi said. Gunfire also erupted in the religiously mixed Dora district of southwestern Baghdad, where local authorities imposed a curfew.
In the northern city of Kirkuk, a suicide truck bomber attacked an office of President Jalal Talabani's political party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, killing five people and wounding 12, police said.
A roadside bomb killed a policeman and wounded four people in the Shiite city of Hillah in southern Iraq. Also in the south, a former major general under Saddam Hussein was assassinated in Basra, a predominantly Shiite city that is the country's second-biggest metropolis.
At least 28 other people were reported killed in various bombings and shootings across Iraq, including 13 whose bodies were discovered in several locations in Wasit province southeast of Baghdad, police said.
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