The blasts included 14 car bombs, two roadside bombs and mortar attacks in at least 17 neighborhoods of the capital, most of them in Shiite neighborhoods, police said.

In an earlier report, police said there had been three roadside bombs and a sticky bomb: a device typically placed on a vehicle.

Explosions struck the Shiite neighborhoods of Kadhimiya in the northwest; Amil, Bayaa and Shulaa in the southwest; Ur and Zuhour in the northeast; Sadr City, Kamaliya and Amin in the east; and Abu Dhsir in the southern part of the city.

Other blasts struck mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods, including Waziriya, Yarmouk, Jihad and Eghraiat.

A US military spokesman, Lt. Col. Eric Bloom, said the strikes are typical of al Qaeda in Iraq attacks.

During the height of the Iraq war, sectarian violence tore through Baghdad on a daily basis in Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods.