The US military, meanwhile, raised the death toll in a suicide truck bombing against a police station in Baghdad on Saturday to 33 police officers, saying 20 other policemen and 24 civilians were wounded. Iraqi police said 20 people were killed in the strike, which was the deadliest of a series of suicide bombings nationwide.

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The new toll would raise to 87 the number of people killed or found dead in Iraq on Saturday - 60 in suicide bombings.

Suspected Shiite militants attacked a Sunni mosque on Sunday in apparent retaliation for one of those attacks - a suicide truck bombing against a Shiite mosque that killed 11 people in Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad.

The explosion on Sunday blew a hole in the roof of the mosque's minaret but caused no injuries, although two people were wounded after clashes erupted in the area following the blast. Local authorities imposed a curfew after gunmen opened fire on a funeral procession for the victims killed in Saturday's blast, raising fresh concerns about sectarian violence.

The number of execution-style killings in the capital has declined since the operation started on Feb. 14 - a development officials say is due to an agreement keeping Shiite militias off the street. Sunday's attack in Haswa highlighted concerns that militia factions are angry about being sidelined while the bombings continue.

On March 14, US military spokesman Maj. Gen. William C. Caldwell expressed optimism about the Baghdad security plan, but urged patience and cautioned that "high-profile" car bombings, which rose to a high of 77 in February, could "start the whole cycle of violence again."

The Islamic State in Iraq, an insurgent umbrella group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, purportedly claimed responsibility for three other suicide bombings Saturday near the Anbar province city of Qaim, near the Syrian border, saying in an Internet statement that 45 policemen were killed and 48 were wounded.

The statement could not be independently verified, and police said only six people had been killed, including five policemen, and 19 other people wounded in the three attacks against checkpoints and a police station.

At least 31 people were killed or found dead elsewhere in Iraq, including two soldiers who died after a suicide car bomber struck an Iraqi army checkpoint in Baqouba and 22 bullet-riddled bodies of apparent victims of so-called sectarian death squads - most in Baghdad.

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