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Suicide bombings and other attacks across Iraq killed at least 30 people and wounded nearly 70 more on Monday, officials said, the latest in an uptick in violence as the country counts down to crucial parliament elections later this month.

Over the past year, violence has surged in Iraq to levels unseen since 2008. The increase in deadly shootings and bombings has become the Shiite-led government's most serious challenge as the nation prepares to head to the polls on April 30 the first vote in Iraq since the U.S. army withdrawal in 2011.

Monday's deadliest attack took place south of Baghdad in the town of Suwayrah, where a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a police checkpoint, killing 12 people five policemen and seven civilians. A police officer said 19 people were wounded in the attack.

In the nearby town of Madain, about 20 kilometers (14 miles) southeast of Baghdad, another suicide car bomber struck an army checkpoint, killing three soldiers and two civilians, a second police officer said. Twelve other people were wounded, he said.

An Iraqi soldier was killed and three were wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in the northern town of Mishahda, 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Baghdad, a police officer said. And in the town of Latifiyah, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Baghdad, gunmen in speeding car went on a shooting spree, killing one civilian and wounding two, a police officer said.

Monday evening, three more bombs struck various parts of Baghdad, killing at least 11 people and wounding 32, police said.

Medical officials confirmed the causality figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Monday's carnage came a day after at least 18 people and wounded nearly 50 across the country.

Those attacks included a coordinated assault on a private Shiite college in Baghdad in which a suicide bomber with an explosives belt attacked the main gate while three militants attacked the back gate of the college. Four policemen and one teacher were killed and 18 other people were wounded.

Hours after the attack, an al-Qaida spin-off group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for the attack, accusing the college's professors of teaching students to "curse" the Prophet Muhammad and training them to "fight" the Sunnis in Iraq and Syria.

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Suicide Bombings, Attacks in Iraq Kill 19 People

Battlefield Iraq: Heavy Clashes And Fighting Between Insurgents And Iraqi Army In The Anba

By: Please like PigMine #39;s FaceBook page here: Subscribe to . Clashes continue between Iraqi security forces, the Al-Qaeda and its affiliate group, the Isla...

By: Meritta Yanagimachi

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Battlefield Iraq: Heavy Clashes And Fighting Between Insurgents And Iraqi Army In The Anba - Video

The attacks, including the bombing in Baghdad's Imam Kadhim University, took place less than 2 weeks before a parliamentary election that will be a major test for security forces

BAGHDAD, Iraq Attacks in Iraq, including a suicide bombing at a university in north Baghdad, killed at least 10 people on Sunday, April 20, security and medical officials said.

The attacks, which come as Iraq suffers a prolonged surge in bloodshed, took place less than two weeks before a parliamentary election that will be a major test for security forces.

Officials gave varying accounts of the bombing of Baghdad's Imam Kadhim University.

A police colonel said a suicide attacker entered the university before setting off explosives, while another bomber and a gunman were killed by security forces.

An interior ministry official, meanwhile, said the bombing took place at the entrance to the university, while a second bomber was shot dead.

The attack killed at least 3 people and wounded at least 9, officials said.

Iraq is hit by daily bombings and shootings that kill hundreds of people each month, but attacks targeting universities are relatively rare.

In Babil province, south of Baghdad, a car bomb killed 3 people and wounded 4, while two more car bombs killed 3 people and wounded 26 in Al-Rumaitha in Muthanna province, further south.

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Iraq attacks kill 10 as bomber hits university

BAGHDAD (AP) Attacks across Iraq, including a series of bombings targeting shoppers in a Sunni neighborhood in the country's capital, killed at least 16 people Saturday, authorities said.

The deadliest attacks struck Baghdad's predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Dora. Saturday morning, police said two bombs exploded on busy commercial streets, killing four people. That night, police said three more bomb blasts in the same area killed five people and wounded 10.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blasts, though Shiite militants have retaliated in the past for Sunni insurgent groups killing their own. The Sunni-led violence, part of a series of stepped-up attacks since last year, aims at undermining Iraq's Shiite-led government ahead of a crucial vote later this month.

Outside of Baghdad, police said a suicide bomber killed five soldiers and wounded eight at a checkpoint in Mishada, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the capital. Also Saturday, police said a roadside bomb killed two soldiers on patrol and wounded five people in Tarmiyah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Baghdad.

Health officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief journalists.

Last year, Iraq weathered its deadliest bout of violence since it pulled back from the brink of civil war in 2008. United Nations figures show that violence killed 8,868 people in 2012.

Saturday's attacks also come as Iraq is heading toward a crucial parliamentary election on April 30, its first since the 2011 U.S. troop pullout.

More than 9,000 candidates will vie for 328 seats in parliament, but there will be no balloting in parts of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province, which is engulfed in clashes between security forces and al-Qaida-inspired militants. The militants have seized and are continuing to hold parts of the provincial capital, Ramadi, and nearly all of the nearby city of Fallujah.

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Bombs targeting soldiers, shoppers kill 16 in Iraq

Prospective female lawmakers push for greater awareness of women's rights in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - With fears that women's rights are being eroded in Iraq, prospective female lawmakers are determined to push women's issues to the fore of campaigning for this month's elections.

Despite a constitutional requirement that a quarter of all MPs be women, Iraq lags on key indicators such as female employment and literacy, and there is a bill before parliament that opponents say dramatically curtails women's rights.

Also at issue ahead of April 30 elections are high levels of violence against women, discrimination at the workplace, and poor school attendance.

"I did not expect that we will fight for women's rights in this country," said Inam Abdul Majed, a television news presenter and an election hopeful running in Baghdad.

"I wanted to fight for better education, better services, better life conditions... But we are in this big trouble now, and it is a primary problem to be solved."

Decades ago, Iraq was seen as the most progressive country in the Middle East for women, but now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein rolled back many of those advances in the 1990s, and the rampant bloodshed that followed his ouster in 2003 has led to further restrictions.

Now, more than a quarter of women over the age of 12 are illiterate and only 85 girls attend secondary school for every 100 boys, according to a May 2013 UN fact sheet.

Among the most troubling indicators is the fact that only 14 percent of Iraqi women are either working or actively seeking employment.

"It's a serious issue, because it affects women's financial independence and, without financial independence, women have very few choices in their lives," said Frances Guy, the Iraq representative for UN Women.

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Female candidates fight for rights in Iraq campaign