Hospitals across the region were overwhelmed and only emergency vehicles were exempt from a curfew that was in place across towns west of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.
"The car bombs that were used all had the consistent profile of Al-Qaida in Iraq violence," a US military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, told reporters in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a statement blaming the bombings on "terrorism powers who seek to fuel sectarian strife and damage our people's national unity."
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement strongly condemning the attack, saying "nothing can justify such indiscriminate violence against innocent civilians." He urged Iraqi leaders to set aside political and religious differences to work together to protect civilians.
Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 44 other people were killed or found dead Wednesday, including 24 bullet-riddled bodies of apparent victims of sectarian death squads usually run by Shiite militias. Five civilians also died in separate car bombings in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk and the southern city of Hillah.
Northeast of Baghdad, Iraqi civilians joined police to rise up against suspected Al-Qaida-linked gunmen after a mortar attack in Buhriz. Eight gunmen and six civilians died in the fighting, police said.
