Wave of Attacks Kills Dozens in Iraq

The attacks, a series of car bombings, roadside bombings and armed assaults in Baghdad and five other provinces, also killed army security officers and police officers.

The attacks were an escalation of violence that had already claimed scores of lives across the country since the holy month of Ramadan began in late July and since Al Qaeda in Iraq said it would begin an offensive.

A car packed with explosives was detonated near the amusement park in Zaafaraniya, an area in eastern Baghdad, killing 34 people and wounding 57, mostly women and children, officials said. Earlier in the day, two roadside bombs in the neighborhood killed 2 people and wounded 11. In northern Baghdad, two car bombs exploded near a government building, leaving 7 dead and 42 wounded, the police said.

In the evening, a car blew up near a crowded cafe about 300 feet from a military checkpoint in Sadr City, a Shiite area of Baghdad, killing 23 people and wounding 58, security officials said.

Residents then pelted security forces with stones, saying they had let the car pass the checkpoint without being inspected.

Gunmen using silencers killed 10 Iraqi soldiers at a military outpost in Mushada, northwest of Baghdad, and then two policemen and two others in Falluja.

In northern Iraq, six car bombs in Kirkuk left seven dead, and south of the city, a suicide bomber killed 11 security officers in an antiterrorism office. The police also said that gunmen in Mosul killed two civilians and kidnapped another, and a suicide bomber killed five and wounded 24 in a cafe north of Mosul.

Four soldiers were killed on patrol in Diyala Province, and four police officers were killed in an attack on a checkpoint in Baquba, the police said.