At least 14 car bombs struck 11 towns and cities across Iraq on Sunday, leaving 28 dead and more than 101 wounded.

At least 14 car bombs struck 11 towns and cities across Iraq on Sunday, leaving 28 dead and more than 101 wounded.

The deadliest violence struck in and around the city of Hilla, the capital of Babil province south of Baghdad, where four car bombs killed 16 people, according to police and medics.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the violence. Militants linked to Al-Qaeda, however, often target Iraq's Shiite majority, whom they regard as apostates.

In Baghdad, meanwhile, a car bomb hit the convoy of Riyadh al-Adhadh, the
chief of the provincial council and a Sunni lawmaker belonging to the party of
the national parliament speaker.

Adhadh was unharmed but two others, including one of his bodyguards, were killed and four were wounded.

Another car bombing at a market on the outskirts of the southern port city of Basra killed three people and wounded 15 others, officials said.

Several other attacks south of Baghdad -- in Karbala, Nasiriyah, Kut, Suweirah and Hafriyah -- as well as the predominantly Sunni cities of Abu Ghraib, Baquba and Mosul left seven others dead.

Just a day earlier, a suicide bomber at a funeral near Mosul, Iraq's main northern city, killed 27 people and wounded dozens more, while violence in just the past week has claimed more than 150 people.

Authorities have sought to combat the bloodshed with a range of anti-militant operations and tight traffic rules in the capital, but militants have pressed their attacks.

Officials insist a weeks-long campaign targeting militants is yielding results, however, analysts and diplomats say militant groups are recruiting new fighters to carry out heavy attacks.