BAGHDAD, Jan 29: A series of mortar, bomb and gun attacks across Iraq killed at least 36 people and wounded scores on Monday, security officials said. Twelve people were killed and 28 wounded when several mortar shells slammed into a southern Baghdad district, a security official said.

The shells hit near a procession of pilgrims marking the Ashura mourning, the official said, adding that none of the pilgrims was hurt.

The mortars were fired into Baghdad's mixed Zafaraniyah neighbourhood, he added.

A suicide car bomb attack on an Iraqi army checkpoint killed four people and wounded 17 in Baghdad's Kadhimiyah district, the official said, adding that soldiers were among the casualties.

In a separate incident, four people died and five were wounded when a bomb exploded inside a minibus on Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad, security and medical sources said.

Another car bomb in Baghdad's Sadr City district killed one and wounded three more, while in the capital's central Karrada district a sniper shot dead a policeman standing guard at a bank, the security source said.

In the restive Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, nine people were killed in a wave of attacks.

Of these, seven were shot dead in the provincial capital of Baquba, and a woman was killed in a mortar attack in the town of Khallis near Baquba, police said.

Attacks were also reported in the country's northern and southern regions.

In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, one person was killed by a bomb placed outside the entrance to a cemetery, police said, adding that the entrance was specifically assigned for taking in the bodies of Arabs and Turkmen.

In the southern city of Amara, two people were killed when a roadside bomb blew up as an Iraqi army patrol passed, police said.

Elsewhere two people were reported killed.

Police also recovered 25 bodies -- 22 in Baghdad alone -- of people killed in apparent sectarian attacks.

Three bodies were retrieved from the Tigris river near the town of Suwaira, south of Baghdad, including one that had been decapitated, a security source said.

MILITANTS CAPTURED: In its first full statement on what Iraqi officials called a major battle with a messianic cult south of Baghdad, the US military said on Monday that 100 militants were captured in the operation.