Violence claims 47 lives in Iraq

But Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has said that attacks are on the wane and he pledged the government would never let a civil war happen.

The deadliest attack came in Khallis, a mainly Shia town north of Baghdad, where gunmen killed 14 at a market.

They fired indiscriminately at shoppers in the town's main market.

In Baghdad itself, a bomb planted in a minibus near the Palestine Hotel killed nine and injured 14 and a car bomb near the state-run newspaper al-Sabah claimed at least two lives.

Gunmen also shot dead three bodyguards of a former Deputy Prime Minister, Abd Mutlaq al-Juburi, as his convoy was travelling to the capital.

In other attacks:

• Two simultaneous suicide car bombs in the mixed northern city of Kirkuk killed nine and wounded 22

• A motorbike suicide bomber in the mainly Shia city of Basra killed seven and wounded 10 in an attack on a market

• Gunmen killed two people in the northern city of Mosul

• One US soldier was shot dead in eastern Baghdad.

'No increase'

Speaking to CNN, Mr Maliki said the violence was "not increasing".

"We're not in a civil war - Iraq will never be in a civil war," he told the US television channel.

"The violence is in decrease and our security ability is increasing."

US-led forces have been carrying out a major operation to improve security in Baghdad.

A joint force of Iraqi and US soldiers has searched 31,000 buildings and 25 mosques, detained 70 suspected insurgents and seized 529 weapons in the past two weeks.

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