The blast in Adhamiyah wounded another 30 people, while violence elsewhere in the country killed five more, officials said.

The latest attacks came amid a months-long spike in enemy-plotted unrest that has raised concerns Iraq is slipping back into the rampant violence that plagued it in 2006 and 2007 and left tens of thousands dead.

The Adhamiyah bombing came after a suicide bomber struck a funeral in Baghdad on Sunday, killing 12 people, and two blasts targeting Muslim mourners killed 73 on Saturday.

And on Friday, two bombs exploded in a mosque near Samarra, north of Baghdad, killing 18 others.

There are persistent fears, bolstered by a spate of sectarian attacks this year plotted by foreign backed extremist militants, of a return to widespread fighting between religious communities.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said in a statement released earlier on Monday that attacks in Iraq aimed to "reignite sectarian strife" and divide the country.

More attacks struck northern Iraq on Monday.

A bomb exploded near an ambulance that was carrying a pregnant woman to a hospital near the city of Mosul, wounding her and the driver and killing one of her relatives and a medic.

The woman was in labour at the time of the blast. Her child, a boy, was delivered by Caesarian section and was in good health, a medical source said.

Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, is one of the most dangerous areas of Iraq, with militants carrying out near-daily attacks.

Insurgents have a major presence in Mosul and are said to extort money from shop owners in the city.

Gunmen killed a tribal sheikh and another man in Mosul on Monday, and a farmer near Baiji to its south was also shot dead.

With the latest violence, more than 600 people have been killed this month and over 4,400 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.

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