Attacks across Iraq killed 32 people on Tuesday, as politicians haggle over forming a new governing coalition after an April general election.

Attacks across Iraq killed 32 people on Tuesday, as politicians haggle over forming a new governing coalition after an April general election.

The worst of Tuesday's bloodshed unrest was concentrated in the outskirts of Baghdad, with eight people killed in all, security and medical officials said.

In Iskandiriyah, militants killed five people -- two with guns and three with knives -- along a main road in the town before fleeing the scene. It was not clear why the victims were targeted.

On the capital's northern outskirts, two people were killed by mortar fire in Saba al-Bor, while a policeman was shot dead in Tarmiyah.

Further north, attacks in Salaheddin, Nineveh and Kirkuk provinces killed six people, four of them policemen, officials said.

Shelling of Iraqi city Fallujah killed 18 people and wounded another 43 Tuesday, according to Doctor Ahmed Shami at the city hospital.

The shelling, which hit a market, municipal offices and in the vicinity of the hospital itself, struck at around midday, said an AFP journalist in the city, just a short drive west of Baghdad.

Figures separately compiled by the United Nations and the government in Baghdad showed more than 900 people were killed last month alone.

An AFP tally puts the death toll so far this year at more than 4,000.