Multiple explosions rock Baghdad

At least 37 people were killed and scores more injured Wednesday after a series of blasts rocked Baghdad, some of them near the heavily fortified Green Zone where key government offices are located, Iraqi officials and police sources told Al Jazeera.

The deadliest of the attacks took place across the street from the Foreign Ministry building, when two car bombs went off simultaneously in two different parking lots. Those explosions killed at least seven people and wounded 15, a police officer said.

Shortly afterward, a suicide bomber walked into a nearby falafel restaurant where he set off an explosives-laden belt, killing five people and wounding 12, the officer added.

Also on Wednesday morning, a car bomb detonated in Khilani Square in the Iraqi capital's commercial center, killing four people and wounding eight, another police officer said.

Two medical officials confirmed the casualty figures, but all officials spoke on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to talk to media. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombings.

The blasts happened a day after two rockets were fired into the Green Zone, home to the prime minister's office and Western embassies, and are likely to heighten concerns about Iraq's ability to protect strategic sites as security deteriorates.

The incidents come amid the worst surge in bloodshed in more than five years, raising fears that Iraq is slipping back into the sectarian violence that left tens of thousands of people dead in 2006 and 2007.

According to U.N. figures, 2013 had the highest death toll since the worst of the country's sectarian bloodletting. The U.N. said violence killed 8,868 people last year.

The Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has been fighting government forces in Anbar province, a mostly Sunni desert region bordering Syria where fighters have held parts of Ramadi and all of Fallujah for weeks.

Security forces and pro-government tribal fighters have made slow progress in Ramadi after days of heavy clashes, and late on Tuesday had retaken several neighborhoods, according to officers and an AFP journalist.

Families will be allowed to return to their homes within days, a general leading the operation said, after security forces check the areas for booby traps and bombs.

But a trickier operation is underway in Fallujah, which is currently being surrounded and shelled by the Iraqi army in preparation for a possible ground assault to drive out anti-government fighters.

In a short speech broadcast on state television on Wednesday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said local authorities and tribal leaders in Anbar would unveil a joint initiative to end the standoff in the coming days. He did not elaborate.

"The goal of this initiative is to unify positions to end the battle against Al-Qaeda," said Maliki. "The battle is on the threshold of conclusion."

Al Jazeera and wire services