In a statement released on Tuesday, the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, took responsibility for the bombings saying “Security and military detachments of the state of Baghdad and the south on Monday... simultaneously hit targets that were surveyed and chosen specifically.”

On Monday, at least 57 people were killed in more than a dozen bomb attacks across Iraq.

Eleven car bombs struck nine different areas of the Iraqi capital, while another blast hit Mahmudiyah south of Baghdad.

Two more bomb attacks hit the city of Kut , two bombs exploded in Samawa and another in Basra.

According to AFP figures, over 800 people have so far been killed in Iraq violence since the beginning of July, and more than 3,000 since the beginning of 2013.

Meanwhile, on July 23, al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for deadly attacks on two major prisons in the capital Baghdad and the nearby town of Taji that freed hundreds of militants.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a shadowy group that was once allegedly led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was reportedly killed in June 2006.

According to US government and military officials, the group was then led by Ayyub al-Masri, who was killed along with Abu Omar al-Baghdadi -- another leader of the group -- in a joint Iraqi-US operation in Salahuddin province in April 2010.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq has been blamed for some of the deadliest terrorist attacks in the country since the US-led invasion in March 2003.

SHI/SHI