Iraqi police found 60 bodies dumped across Baghdad in the 24 hours leading up to this morning, all apparent victims of sectarian death squads.
Most of the 60 bodies, victims of the deaths squads who torture and kill at will in Baghdad, had been shot in the head execution-style, an Interior Ministry official said. Many bore signs of torture, he added.
Elsewhere, a bomb under a car near a Sunni mosque in the southern Baghdad district of Doura exploded at midday, killing 10 people.
The US military also said Iraqi and US forces had killed 11 militants, most dressed as Iraqi policemen, in fresh clashes in the southern Shia city of Diwaniya. Thirty Shia militiamen were reported killed there in fighting on Sunday.
Iraq has been suffering sectarian bloodletting since the bombing of a revered Shia shrine in February. The United Nations estimates 100 Iraqis die every day in violence that Iraqi and US officials fear could descend into civil war.
In the most high profile killing in recent weeks, gunmen in camouflage uniform shot dead the brother of Iraq's Sunni Vice President, Tareq al-Hashemi, yesterday. He was the third of Mr Hashemi's siblings to be killed since April.
The killings in the capital come despite a major security sweep by US and Iraqi troops first begun in June. US officials had predicted a surge in violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began in late September.