The blasts in Baghdad occurred within the space of a few hours Friday morning, sowing panic across the city and underscoring the insurgency's undiminished capacity to stage the kind of spectacular, multiple attacks that sustain its potency. In an audio statement posted on the Internet, a voice purporting to belong to the Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi urged his followers to keep up their attacks, saying the mujahedeen are winning the war against "the infidels." A separate statement claimed responsibility for 10 of Friday's attacks, though it wasn't clear which ones.

In his audio statement, al-Zarqawi assured his followers that the "mujahedeen" are close to victory in Iraq. "Your enemy the Americans are now in such dire straits they have started to send messages to open up a dialogue with the mujahedeen, but in vain. Never! It is a trick, and I want you to be aware of this trick," said the voice, apparently referring to a reported channel of communication opened between U.S. officials and some insurgents last month. "Don't let the night come until your swords are dripping with the blood of the infidel," the voice said. "Attack any checkpoint, any barrier, any gathering of infidels and darken their day."

• An American soldier died in a suicide bombing near Taiji, 20 miles north of Baghdad, and two were injured.
• Two U.S. Marines were killed in a suicide attack in Diyarah, in the turbulent western province of Anbar, the military said.
• In the worst incident, four consecutive suicide attacks occurred within minutes in the Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah in Baghdad, killing 13 people, nine of them soldiers and police.
• A witness said in the first of the attacks soldiers in two Iraqi army vehicles cornered a suspicious car near a restaurant. When the soldiers jumped out and surrounded the driver, he detonated his car, killing himself and several of the soldiers, said Omar Ahmed, 27, a taxi driver who lives above the restaurant. Dozens of shops and apartments were set ablaze by the huge blast, which ripped uniforms from the soldiers and left the shredded uniforms dangling from nearby power lines.
• Moments later, two more bombings in the neighborhood targeted a police barricade. They were followed by twin suicide bombings in the Baghdad neighborhood of Ghadiya that killed one.
• The same morning, three suicide attacks in the town of Madain on the southern outskirts of Baghdad killed 13 people. Madain is a former insurgent stronghold that was recently taken over by U.S. and Iraqi security forces after Shiites in the neighborhood said insurgents were massacring Shiite hostages.
• A 12th suicide bombing in Baqouba, two blasts in Basra and a roadside bomb in Irbil killed six people, bringing to 15 the number of bombings on one of the worst days of violence since the election in January.