In the deadliest attacks, a car bomb in a busy commercial street in the capital's central Waziriyah neighborhood killed at least seven people and set security vehicles ablaze.
And seven people from the same family all died in a drive-by shooting of a minibus, part of a wave of violence that has underscored the need for a permanent government and strong leadership in the defense and interior ministries.
Although prime minister designate Nuri Al Maliki said on Wednesday that he would submit his cabinet lineup for approval by parliament on Saturday, political groups have shown continuing discord.
New names for the coveted security ministries were being floated just four days ahead of a constitutional deadline for the cabinet's formation.
"Nominations for the candidacies are going to be up for discussion until the very end," the Al-Sabah Al-Jadid independent daily newspaper predicted.
Sources close to Maliki said that two ex-generals - Sunni Baraa Najeeb Al Rubaie and Shia Nasser Daham Fahad Al Amri - have been added to a list of five other candidates for the defense and interior ministries.
Rubaie, fingered for the defense post, left Iraq in 1991 and joined Ayad Allawi's anti-Saddam organization composed largely of former military men.
Amri, a possible candidate for the interior ministry, is from the Shia Al-Bu Amr tribe, which has good relations with Sunni tribes north of Baghdad. He is a cousin of former parliament speaker Thari Al Fayadh.
Independent Shias Ahmed Chalabi, Washington's former protégé, and Qassem Daoud, an ex-national security minister, are two other candidates for the interior ministry, Shia deputy Hassan Al Sunaid said.
The names of Sunnis Hashem Al Hasni, the former parliament speaker; Osama Al Najafi, the former minister of industry, and the current defense minister Saadun Al Dulaimi have also been voiced as potential heads at defense, the MP said.
In a press conference on Thursday, the president and his vice-president declined to speculate on the issues of government formation but instead focused on the tension in Iraq's second city of Basra.
"The tensions within city council created insecurity and a loss of control, resulting in deaths and displacement, which has to be placed under control," said Vice-President Adel Abdel Mahdi, who was charged with resolving the situation.
Abdel Mahdi attributed the tensions to economic reasons as well as "foreign factors".
In other violence, a local leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Nejmeddin Abdullah, was shot dead as he left his Kirkuk party headquarters by gunmen in a car.
Also in the northern oil hub of Kirkuk, four men murdered a teacher and a student from technical school in a drive-by shooting.
The corpse of a Kurdish woman working for a labor union and missing for two weeks was found, and Iraqi army employee Abed Said Jabbar was kidnapped.
Meanwhile in Abu Skher, a village south of Najaf, an AFP correspondent saw what appeared to be a sports utility vehicle typical of the kind used by US contractors burning fiercely after it was hit by a roadside bomb.
US soldiers were securing the area, but the military said that it could not immediately confirm the incident or provide casualty figures.
There are also reports of fierce clashes between insurgents and US forces in the center of the insurgency-plagued city of Ramadi, in Iraq's west, with Ramadi hospital reporting two dead and three wounded.
© 2006 Agence France-Presse
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