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A parishoner passing an Iraqi security officer, outside the Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Chaldean Church
Most casualties were children, some of whom were under the age of 13, defence and interior ministry officials said on condition of anonymity.
The afternoon attack came just days ahead of the climax on Sunday of the 10-day rituals to commemorate Ashura, which marks the killing of Shiite Imam Hussein by armies of Sunni caliph Yazid in 680.
Later at night, four people were killed and five wounded by mortars fired into the residential area of Obaidi, in eastern Baghdad, said a spokesman for the military command in the capital.
In the restive northern city of Mosul, meanwhile, three teachers, who were working with Iraq's census authorities, were found shot dead, according to a police officer who did not want to be named.
Also in Mosul one civilian was killed and another was wounded by a bomb targeting a police patrol in the centre of the city while in the western part of town police said they found the corpse of a strangled woman.
Meanwhile, in the central province of Diyala, two brothers of Mustafa al-Azawi, the Sunni Arab mayor of the town of Mansuriyah, were found dead after they were kidnapped on Friday morning, police said.
The two men were aged 29 and 24. Azawi has two other brothers.
A suicide car bomb along a road connecting the northern Iraqi towns of Rabiyaa, near the Syrian border, and Sinoosi also killed a Kurdish peshmerga security force member and wounded 15 others, a force spokesman said.
"Some of the wounded are badly injured and they have been transferred to Zakho (a town in Kurdistan) for medical treatment," Colonel Simi Borsli said.
The car bomb was targeting a patrol of the peshmerga, the main security force in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.
The latest violence follows a spate of attacks across Iraq on Thursday in which dozens of people died.
A hospital official put the final toll from twin bomb attacks at a bus station in the southern town of Hilla on Thursday at 19 dead and 80 wounded, up from an earlier death toll of 15.
Iraqi authorities have stepped up security in the run-up to Christmas and Ashura, deploying more security forces in cities with significant Christian populations such as Baghdad, Mosul and the ethnically-mixed northern city of Kirkuk.
Some 46,000 policemen and soldiers have also been deployed in the Shiite shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala, the latter of which is where Imam Hussein is buried and where around one million people are due to visit for Ashura.
Security for Christians was increased after the army received intelligence of attacks targeting members of the minority community around Christmas.
In a Christmas sermon on Friday a senior Iraqi priest urged parishioners not to be intimidated by attacks against the Christian community in recent weeks, but also warned that they should not linger near churches.
"Do not be afraid," said Bishop Shlemon Warduni, the second-most-senior Chaldean bishop in Iraq.
In the past six weeks, four Christians and three Muslims have been killed in a series of attacks against churches in Mosul, where Iraqi Christians have long been concentrated.
"If we are alive, God is with us, and if they take away our lives, we will have eternal life. We must be brave, take fear from our hearts, and work and go on as before," Warduni said.
He added, however, "I ask you not to gather in front of the church, but to go home."
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The afternoon attack came just days ahead of the climax on Sunday of the 10-day rituals to commemorate Ashura, which marks the killing of Shiite Imam Hussein by armies of Sunni caliph Yazid in 680.
Later at night, four people were killed and five wounded by mortars fired into the residential area of Obaidi, in eastern Baghdad, said a spokesman for the military command in the capital.
In the restive northern city of Mosul, meanwhile, three teachers, who were working with Iraq's census authorities, were found shot dead, according to a police officer who did not want to be named.
Also in Mosul one civilian was killed and another was wounded by a bomb targeting a police patrol in the centre of the city while in the western part of town police said they found the corpse of a strangled woman.
Meanwhile, in the central province of Diyala, two brothers of Mustafa al-Azawi, the Sunni Arab mayor of the town of Mansuriyah, were found dead after they were kidnapped on Friday morning, police said.
The two men were aged 29 and 24. Azawi has two other brothers.
A suicide car bomb along a road connecting the northern Iraqi towns of Rabiyaa, near the Syrian border, and Sinoosi also killed a Kurdish peshmerga security force member and wounded 15 others, a force spokesman said.
"Some of the wounded are badly injured and they have been transferred to Zakho (a town in Kurdistan) for medical treatment," Colonel Simi Borsli said.
The car bomb was targeting a patrol of the peshmerga, the main security force in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.
The latest violence follows a spate of attacks across Iraq on Thursday in which dozens of people died.
A hospital official put the final toll from twin bomb attacks at a bus station in the southern town of Hilla on Thursday at 19 dead and 80 wounded, up from an earlier death toll of 15.
Iraqi authorities have stepped up security in the run-up to Christmas and Ashura, deploying more security forces in cities with significant Christian populations such as Baghdad, Mosul and the ethnically-mixed northern city of Kirkuk.
Some 46,000 policemen and soldiers have also been deployed in the Shiite shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala, the latter of which is where Imam Hussein is buried and where around one million people are due to visit for Ashura.
Security for Christians was increased after the army received intelligence of attacks targeting members of the minority community around Christmas.
In a Christmas sermon on Friday a senior Iraqi priest urged parishioners not to be intimidated by attacks against the Christian community in recent weeks, but also warned that they should not linger near churches.
"Do not be afraid," said Bishop Shlemon Warduni, the second-most-senior Chaldean bishop in Iraq.
In the past six weeks, four Christians and three Muslims have been killed in a series of attacks against churches in Mosul, where Iraqi Christians have long been concentrated.
"If we are alive, God is with us, and if they take away our lives, we will have eternal life. We must be brave, take fear from our hearts, and work and go on as before," Warduni said.
He added, however, "I ask you not to gather in front of the church, but to go home."
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