BAGHDAD - Violence was reported Sunday in and around Baghdad, with the biggest attack targeting a Baghdad market and killing at least 42 people, police and witnesses said.

The car bomb attack, which struck the Baija district of southern Baghdad, also left more than 70 people wounded.

Using street barricades and additional troops the Iraqi government has been trying since mid-February to reduce the number of such attacks.

In an incident in western Baghdad, three people were killed and 11 wounded when a car bomb was detonated in al-Mansour district, police sources said.

Al-Mansour, one of Baghdad's busiest districts is mixed, with Sunni, Shiite and Christian presence.

In Samarra, two suicide attackers in northern Iraq killed seven people, including a police director in the city, reports said.

One of the attackers blew himself up in front of a police station in Samarra, killing six Iraqis and wounding eight, the al-Arabiya broadcaster reported.

The second attacker struck a police convoy, killing the director of police in the city.

Only a day earlier, militants shot dead two high-ranking police officers and an Iraqi soldier in Samarra.

Separately, Voices of Iraq news agency reported that a gunman was shot dead and 11 people, including three civilians, were killed in clashes in Sunni-dominated Diyala province, around 57 kilometres north of the Iraqi capital.

The gunmen had reportedly shot at the house of a Sunni leader belonging to the Iraqi Islamic party, the agency quoted police sources as saying. The leader's personal guards fired back.

Meanwhile, US-led coalition forces in Iraq said they destroyed what they described as a torture room in addition to seizing a large weapons cache and bomb-making materials Sunday morning while targeting militants in the Shiite-dominated Sadr City area of Baghdad.

The forces' statement said they targeted the location based on intelligence reports that indicated the presence of suspects belonging to a terrorist cell.

The targeted network is 'known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators from Iran to Iraq, as well as bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training,' read the report. During their raid, coalition forces reportedly exchanged fire with militants and killed at least eight of them.

Recently, the US military have been reporting findings of Iranian-marked weapons and explosives, which were later destroyed by members of the US-led coalition.

The US military also said their forces detained 13 terror suspects during raids targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq. -DPA