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BAGHDAD Suicide bombings and other attacks across Iraq killed at least 33 people and wounded nearly 80 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 governments most serious challenge as the nation prepares to head to the polls on April 30 the first vote in Iraq since the U.S. military withdrawal in 2011.

Mondays 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 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, 20 miles north of Baghdad, a police officer said. And in the town of Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, gunmen in a speeding car went on a shooting spree, killing one civilian and wounding two, a police officer said.

Monday evening, four more bombs struck various parts of Baghdad, killing at least 14 people and wounding 40, police said.

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

Mondays carnage came a day after violence killed 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 facilitys main gate while three militants attacked the back gate. Four policemen and one teacher were killed and 18 other people were wounded.

According to the United Nations, 8,868 people were killed in Iraq last year the countrys highest death toll since a peak of sectarian bloodletting in 2007.

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Bombings, other attacks kill 33 in Iraq