A wave of car and roadside bombs hit Baghdad province on Monday evening, killing at least 21 people, while eight security forces members died in other attacks, officials said.

The Baghdad attacks are just the latest coordinated bombings to strike Iraq's capital in recent weeks, as the country witnesses its worst violence since 2008.

This year's surge in violence has raised fears of a relapse into the kind of intense Sunni-Shiite bloodshed that peaked in 2006-2007 and killed tens of thousands of people.

Eight car bombs and two roadside bombs exploded in eight areas in and around Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 21 people and wounding at least 98, officials said.

AFP journalists heard one of the blasts in central Baghdad, followed by emergency vehicle sirens.

The attacks came a day after two bombings in the capital, including a suicide attack against Shiite pilgrims, killed 14 people.

Other attacks targeted Iraqi security forces on Monday, killing eight.

North of Baghdad, two roadside bombs killed four Sahwa anti-Qaeda fighters and wounded five, while another south of the capital killed two Sahwa and wounded six people, among them four Sahwa fighters.

The Sahwa, who joined forces with the United States from late 2006 and helped bring about a sharp reduction in violence in Iraq, are frequently targeted by Sunni militants, who consider them to be traitors.

And south of the city of Fallujah, which is located west of Baghdad, a bombing against an army patrol followed by an attack by gunmen on a checkpoint killed two soldiers and wounded six.

A guard also caught a woman trying to plant a bomb near a primary school south of Baghdad on Monday.

The woman was trying to place the bomb next to the wall of a school in Madain but was discovered by one of the school's guards, who turned her over to the army with the help of a second guard, said the interior ministry.

It came a day after suicide bombers attacked a primary school and a nearby police station in northern Iraq, killing 18 people, including 10 children.

A total of 36 people were killed in attacks across Iraq on Sunday.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday that "what Iraq is being exposed to is a big conspiracy that aims to create strife and sectarianism among the sons of one society".

He also said there was a plan to move Syria's bloody civil war to Iraq.

Diplomats and analysts say the Shiite-led government's failure to address the grievances of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority -- which complains of political exclusion and abuses by security forces -- has driven the surge in unrest.

Violence worsened sharply after security forces stormed a Sunni Arab anti-government protest camp in northern Iraq on April 23, sparking clashes in which dozens died.

The authorities have made some concessions aimed at placating anti-government protesters and Sunnis in general, such as freeing prisoners and raising the salaries of Sunni anti-Al-Qaeda fighters, but underlying issues remain unaddressed.

With the latest violence, more than 200 people have been killed so far this month, and over 4,900 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.

Suicide bombers target Shiites in Iraq, killing 24
Baghdad (AFP) Oct 06, 2013 - Suicide bombers attacked Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad and a primary school and police station in a Shiite village in north Iraq on Sunday, killing at least 24 people, officials said.

Violence has reached a level unseen since 2008, amid persistent fears of a relapse into the kind of intense Sunni-Shiite bloodshed that peaked in 2006-2007 and killed tens of thousands of people.

A suicide bomber detonated explosives near pilgrims walking to a shrine in north Baghdad to commemorate the death of Imam Mohammed al-Jawad, the ninth Shiite imam.

The blast killed at least nine people and wounded 30 others, officials said.

A bus parked near the site of the explosion had a streak of blood running from a shattered window down its side.

Pieces of human flesh hung from a roadside tree, and blood was spattered on a pavement and the underside of a bridge.

Two young boys sifted through debris at the site, where items including sandals and a policeman's belt buckle lay in a pool of water formed when emergency personnel hosed the street down.

"We are not afraid of the explosion, we are not afraid of death," said Hussein Haidar, a pilgrim walking to the shrine after the attack.

Even after the blast, security forces performed only cursory searches of people entering the area.

Iraq is home to some of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam, and millions of pilgrims visit them each year.

But crowds of pilgrims are frequently targeted by Sunni militants including those linked to Al-Qaeda, who consider Shiites to be apostates.

Two more suicide bombers on Sunday targeted the Turkmen Shiite village of Qabak in Nineveh province about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the border with Syria.

10 schoolchildren killed

The bombers detonated explosives-rigged vehicles at a police station and a primary school, killing 15 people and wounding 44, local official Abdulal Abbas told AFP.

Ten children and five police were killed, Abbas said, adding that the school bombing collapsed the building's roof.

Sunday is a normal schoolday in Iraq, where the weekend is on Friday and Saturday.

"Al-Qaeda terrorists... carried out the crime because we are Shiites," a weeping mother whose young son was wounded in Qabak said at a hospital in Dohuk province.

Other attacks on Sunday killed nine people.

A bombing in east Baghdad killed at least five and wounded 14, while two blasts in the northern province of Kirkuk killed a Kurdish security forces member and wounded another.

And a roadside bomb killed three police and wounded one near Ramadi, west of Baghdad.

In Iraq, almost nothing is safe from attack by militants.

They have struck highly secure targets such as prisons, and also bombed cafes, markets, mosques, football fields, weddings and funerals.

Sunday's blasts came a day after violence including an attack on Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad and a suicide bombing at a cafe killed at least 73 people.

Among them were two journalists from the Sharqiya television channel gunned down in the northern city of Mosul.

UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov called on Iraq's "political, religious and civil leaders to work together with the security forces" to curb the bloodshed.

"It is their responsibility to ensure that pilgrims can practise their religious duties, that schoolchildren can attend their classes, that journalists can exercise their professional duties, and that ordinary citizens can live a normal life," Mladenov said in a statement.

A US embassy statement deplored the "abhorrent suicide attack against a primary school.

"This attack targeting innocent school children and the recent attack against pilgrims in Baghdad are reprehensible," it said.

Diplomats and analysts say the Shiite-led government's failure to address the grievances of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority -- which complains of political exclusion and abuses by security forces -- has driven the surge in unrest.

Violence worsened sharply after security forces stormed a Sunni Arab anti-government protest camp in northern Iraq on April 23, sparking clashes in which dozens died.

The authorities have made some concessions aimed at placating anti-government protesters and Sunnis in general, such as freeing prisoners and raising the salaries of Sunni anti-Al-Qaeda fighters, but underlying issues remain unaddressed.

The latest violence takes this month's death toll to more than 160, and more than 4,850 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.