A militant umbrella body affiliated to al Qaeda claimed responsibility on Sunday for some of the bombings that killed 43 people in and near Baghdad on Saturday in defiance of a security clampdown.

A woman who lost both her son and husband is comforted by her daughter, right, as she grieves near the morgue of Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad, Iraq Sunday, June 18, 2006, following a parked car bomb which detonated in the Um al-Mea'alef neighborhood of southwest Baghdad on Saturday night killing 6 and wounding 22 civilians. [AP Photo]

It was one of the bloodiest days in Iraq since the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Sunni Arab insurgent Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a US air strike on June 7.

The Mujahideen Shura Council, which had pledged to continue until "doomsday" what it described as the holy war against crusader forces, said in a statement that it was behind four Baghdad bombs on Saturday, out of the seven reported by police.

The Iraqi capital was relatively calm on Sunday morning. Gunmen abducted 10 workers from a bakery in a northwestern district and police said 10 bodies, shot and showing signs of torture, had been found in different places overnight.

The US military declined to comment on reports that American forces were surrounding parts of the western insurgent stronghold of Ramadi to try to cut off rebel supply lines.

A Reuters reporter in the area, which has seen frequent clashes between insurgents and US forces, said some roads into the town were closed, but that this was not unusual.

A US military spokesman said recently that Al Qaeda had gained ground in Ramadi and 1,500 extra US troops brought to Iraq would try to break their grip on the town.

One of the Baghdad attacks claimed by the Mujahideen Shura Council, a car bomb at a checkpoint, killed 11 people.

"It was a blessed operation that led to the torching of three cars and the killing of the soldiers around the building," the Council said in a statement whose authenticity could not be independently verified.

The Council, which groups al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni Islamist militant groups to coordinate their fight against US-led forces, said its militants were also behind three other bombings.

It did not give the total number of people killed and two of the attacks did not appear to match police information.

Saturday's killings came three days after 50,000 Iraqi troops backed by 7,000 US-led forces launched a security sweep to put pressure on insurgents in Baghdad.

PM Under Pressure

Iraqi soldiers secure the scene of a mini bus bomb attack, which killed four people, and wounded 14 in eastern Baghdad, June 17, 2006. [Reuters]

The latest wave of violence raised questions about assertions by Iraq's national security adviser last week that al Qaeda's days in Iraq were numbered.

It also added to pressure on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has pledged to crush the insurgency against his government, to reduce the bloodshed that has killed thousands of Iraqis since the 2003 US invasion.

Zarqawi -- who was believed to have personally beheaded hostages on videos -- inspired and organized a flow of militants from across the Arab world willing to become suicide bombers to fight US forces and the US-backed Iraqi government.

Five days after his death, al Qaeda named Abu Hamza al-Muhajir as his successor. The US military has said it suspects that Muhajir is Egyptian-born militant Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who formed al Qaeda's first Baghdad cell, and that it expects him to use the same tactics as his predecessor.

In Iran, a Foreign Ministry spokesman ruled out direct talks between Tehran and Washington on Iraq despite being encouraged to take part by an influential Iraqi politician.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a key Shi'ite Muslim party closely allied to Shi'ite Iran, said on Saturday that such talks could benefit both Tehran and Baghdad.

But Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told a news conference on Sunday: "We do not have talks with the United States on the agenda now."

Relations between former war foes Iran and Iraq have improved since the fall of Saddam Hussein three years ago, followed by the rise to power of Iraq's once-marginalised Shi'ite majority.