Iraqi Special Forces patrol the streets of Baghdad

AFP

A spate of bombings across Iraq, the worst of which were just south of Baghdad, killed 17 people and wounded nearly 100 on Sunday, security and medical officials said.

The deadliest attack took place in Mahmudiyah, 30 kilometres (18 miles) south of Baghdad, where at least 10 people were killed and 36 wounded by two car bombs, medical officials said.

Attacks also struck the towns of Madain, Ramadi, Mosul and Najaf, reports AFP.

In Madain, just southeast of Baghdad, multiple roadside bombs killed six people and wounded 13, an interior ministry official and a medical source said.

And in the main northern city Mosul, a car bomb near a police headquarters killed a policeman and wounded 15 others, police Lieutenant Mohammed Khalaf and doctor Mahmud Haddad at the city's hospital said.

In separate car bombings in the western city of Ramadi, capital of predominantly Sunni Arab Anbar province, nine people were wounded, including five policemen, security and medical officials said.

In the central Shiite shrine city of Najaf, a car bomb near a restaurant in the old town wounded 23 people, four them seriously, according to provincial health department spokesman Salim Naama.