The latest attacks by insurgents have added to a growing row about claims that the country was in the throes of civil war.
Twelve people, including an Iraqi soldier, were killed in a series of roadside bombings and shootings across the country, where sectarian tensions are running high.
A wave of violence has killed at least 106 Shiites since Thursday, including a triple suicide bomb outside a Baghdad Shiite mosque and a car bombing in the pilgrimage city of Najaf.
Iraq’s government has angrily countered claims that it is in the midst of an escalating civil war three years after the toppling of Saddam's regime on April 9, 2003.
On Saturday Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television that Iraq was undergoing a civil war.
Iraqis divided
On Sunday, Iraq hit back at Mr Mubarak, who also enflamed Shiites across the region when he said their loyalties lay first with Iran.
As Shiites celebrated Saddam’s downfall by trampling on posters emblazoned with the words "fall of the tyrant", Iraq prime minister hit back at Mr Mubarak’s statement.
"The comments have upset Iraqi people who come from different religious and ethnic backgrounds and has astonished and dismayed the Iraqi government,” Mr Jaafari said.
President Jalal Talabani said the "accusations against our Shiite brothers are baseless and we have asked our foreign minister to talk to Egypt about this."
But as if to echo Mr Mubarak, Deputy Interior Minister Hussein Ali Kamal said Iraq had been caught in an "undeclared civil war for the past 12 months."
"On a daily basis Shia, Sunni, Kurds and Christians are being killed and the only undeclared thing is that a civil war has not been officially announced by the parties involved," he told the BBC.
An internal US government report gave a grim view of the situation. The report rated the stability of six of Iraq's 18 provinces as "serious" and another as "critical," The New York Times reported.
Political stalemate
Iraq’s fractured state is being reflected in stalled attempts to install a new cabinet.
Arguments over who should be prime minister have left a power vacuum for nearly four months after Iraq’s general election.
Kurdish political leaders have rejected Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shiite, as premier after a meeting with representatives of his party.
"We have once again rejected Jaafari's candidacy," Kurdish lawmaker Mahmud Othman said.
The Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the 275-member parliament's largest bloc, formed a three-member committee in a bid to end the standoff.
"This committee will talk to the Kurds, the Sunnis and the secularists to get their view on Jaafari and then suggest a final opinion," a source close to the negotiations said.
"If they reach an opinion that goes against Jaafari, then the UIA will meet tomorrow to select a new candidate to replace him."
Mr Jaafari has faced immense pressure from UIA members as well as Kurdish, Sunni and secular parliament factions to step down.
Kurdish and Sunni figures accuse him of failing to stop the wave of sectarian violence that has left hundreds dead since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra on February 22.
Mr Jaafari has refused to go although he has indicated he is ready to put his fate before parliament. Acting speaker Adnan al-Pachachi said he would convene the assembly soon, and that the date would be fixed in the next few days.
Hostage video
Meanwhile two German hostages held in Iraq have appeared in a video on the Internet pleading for their lives while their kidnappers vowed to punish them unless their demands were met.
The kidnappers, a group called Ansar al-Tawheed wal Sunna (Followers of Unity and Prophetic Tradition), demanded the release of all Iraqis held in US-run prisons and told Germany to stop giving help to the US and Iraqi authorities.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said her government was scrutising the video of engineers Thomas Nitzschke, 28, and Rene Braeunlich, 32, which was posted on an Islamic Internet site on Sunday.
"We are closely scrutinising the video we have received of the hostages," Ms Merkel said, adding: "We will do everything in our power to save the hostages and to bring them back to Germany."
In the 24-second video, dated March 28, Mr Nitzschke pleads with the German government to save him and Mr Braeunlich.
"We have been held captive here for more than 60 days. We are close to breaking point. Please help us. Please help us," he said. The video shows the two hostages looking haggard and wearing beards.