And the government has warned of a likely increase in violence ahead of next month's general elections for Iraq’s parliament to be held on December 15.
"We are going to strike forcefully at the hotbeds of terrorism in different regions," Interior Minister Bayan Baker Solagh said. "We'll throw 10,000 men and a thousand military vehicles into these operations, before or after the elections."
The elections to a four-year term parliament are the final step in a US-inspired plan to help build an Iraqi democracy in the wake of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.
Government spokesman Leith Kubba has warned for his part that \"one should expect an increase in violence in the run-up to the December 15 elections", while adding that those responsible will be "criminals and partisans of Saddam Hussein".
In the latest violence an Iraqi was killed and three wounded in an explosion targeting an Iraqi police patrol in Samarra, 125 km north of Baghdad.
In two attacks on Friday, both south of Baghdad, a suicide car bombing against a hospital in Mahmudiyah killed 30 people and a car bomb in a shopping district of Hilla left three dead and 16 wounded.
Sermon
Meanwhile, a Friday sermon at a leading Sunni Arab mosque sought to draw a line between resistance and terrorism.
"Resistance to the occupier is a natural and legitimate right," Sheikh Mahmud Mahdi al-Sumeidaeyi told worshippers attending Friday prayers at Baghdad's Um al-Qura mosque.
"The terrorism which was let loose in our country came with the occupation" by US-led troops, he added.
All Iraqi factions at a meeting in Cairo last weekend accepted the principle of "resistance" while condemning "terrorism directed at civilians, civil, humanitarian and religious institutions."
The Cairo meeting, which included Iraqi government representatives, also agreed on staging a national reconciliation conference in late February to help bring together Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni factions.
It will also discuss a possible timetable for the withdrawal of US-led forces from the country.
The meeting was seen as setting the stage for attempting to draw more Sunni Arabs into the political process ahead of the elections.
Minority Sunni Arabs, dominant under Saddam, are seen as providing the backbone to the raging insurgency.
Their large scale boycott of parliamentary elections in January left them politically isolated.
Iron Curtain
US forces, meanwhile, have just concluded a three-week operation codenamed Iron Curtain in western Iraq designed to root out insurgent strongholds near the Syrian border.
US Major General Rick Lynch said earlier this week that since mid-September, US-led forces had killed over 700 rebels and captured 1,500 suspects in western Iraq. There was no independent confirmation.
Sunni rebels, including Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, have sought to spark sectarian war between Sunnis and Shi'ites in a bid to increase the chaos and discredit the US-backed government.
Many of the bloodiest bomb attacks, including one on November 18 against two mosques in Khanaqin on the Iranian border that killed 80 people have targeted Shi'ite civilians.
Several Sunni Arab political and religious leaders have also been gunned down over the past weeks, including a Sunni tribal leader and four of his relatives early Wednesday by gunmen dressed as Iraqi soldiers.
In the northern Iraqi town of Mosul, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Ibrahim Saleh Othman, was kidnapped and his body found a few hours later, police said. He had been shot.
Three US soldiers were killed on Friday in Iraq, when troops celebrated Thanksgiving.
Two died were killed by a roadside bomb and one when an M-1 Abrams tank rolled over.
The latest deaths brought to at least 2,111 the number of US military personnel killed since the March 2003 invasion, according to an AFP toll based on Pentagon figures.
Saddam trial
In Baghdad, security officials were preparing for the resumption on Monday of the trial of Saddam, who along with seven co-accused faces charges linked to the killing of 148 Shi'ite villagers.
The first witnesses for the prosecution are expected to be called, and could do so from behind screens or with faces masked to protect their anonymity, according to a US official close to the tribunal.
Witnesses will offer evidence related to the killings of the villagers after a failed assassination attempt against the former dictator in 1982 in the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad.
Saddam and his co-accused could face execution if found guilty.
Japan debate
In Tokyo, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi assured visiting Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari today that Japan would continue to assist reconstruction efforts in Iraq, where it has several hundred troops.
Mr Zebari told reporters he discussed with Mr Koizumi whether the current deployment, which expires on the eve of the Iraqi elections, would be extended but there was still an "ongoing debate" within the Tokyo government.