Bombings and shootings killed at least 19 people in and around the Iraqi capital today, as Iran's foreign minister visited the neighboring country amid a backdrop of increasing violence in a restive western region.
Iran has been watching the unrest in Anbar province with alarm, since it shares US concerns about Al-Qaeda even offered to supply military equipment and advisers should Baghdad ask.
"We support Iraq in its war against terrorism," Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif told reporters at a joint news conference with his Iraqi counterpart. "We have always stood with the Iraqi people in their war on terrorism."
Violence has been on the rise in Anbar as security forces and allied Sunni tribesmen battle Al-Qaeda fighters over the control of two key cities there. At least 244 people have died in fighting across the country so far this month, according to an Associated Press count.
Today's violence however centered on the capital, Baghdad, where gunmen killed a judge and his driver in a drive-by shooting in the morning, police said, and other violence upped the body count throughout the day.
A sticky bomb attached to a mini-bus exploded in the afternoon in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr city, killing three passengers and wounding eight.
In northern Baghdad, a roadside bomb missed a police patrol but killed one civilian and wounded six.
Later on, gunmen in a speeding car sprayed an army checkpoint in the western suburb of Abu Ghraib with bullets, killing two soldiers and wounding two others.
In the evening, a car bomb blast in a commercial street in Baghdad's Ghazaliyah district killed six and wounded 16. Also in Ghazaliyah, a second car bomb blast killed two people and wounded six others, while another car bomb killed three and wounded seven in a northeastern suburb.
