According to data compiled by the Iraqi ministries of health, interior and defense, a total of 855 civilians, 65 policemen and 44 soldiers were killed.

A further 1,600 were wounded -- 1,445 civilians, 88 policemen and 67 soldiers. The figures also showed that 33 militants were killed and 167 arrested.

The overall death toll was the highest since April 2008, when government figures showed 1,073 people were killed.

At the time, Iraq was slowly emerging from a foreign backed brutal sectarian war that claimed tens of thousands of lives, with concerns reemerging that the country is on the brink of sliding back into another round of bloodletting.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said earlier that his country is facing a “war of genocide” amid ongoing bombings and shooting attacks carried out across the country.

“It has become clear... that Iraq is subjected to a war of genocide targeting all of its components,” the Iraqi premier said in a press conference in October 24.

Maliki blamed the al-Qaeda militant group for killing thousands of people in Iraq, saying that the group is “destroying the houses of citizens and killing them, and blowing up government departments.”

A study released recently by academics based in the United States, Canada and Iraq said nearly half a million people have died from war-related causes in Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003.

NJF/NJF