HILLA/BAGHDAD (AFP/Reuters) A wave of attacks across Iraq, including twin car bombs against a textiles factory, killed at least 102 people on Monday, security and hospital officials said. There were more than 20 attacks nationwide, a surge in violence that came as the country moved closer to forming a new government two months after a general election seen crucial to US combat troops leaving the country by August 31. Two explosives-packed vehicles hit the factory in the central city of Hilla, killing 50 people and wounding 155 others in the deadliest incident of the day, said Dr Ihab Al-Dhabhawi, a doctor at the citys hospital. About an hour later, a massive blast, which an interior ministry official said was a suicide bomber wearing an explosives-filled belt, engulfed the area as emergency service workers treated victims at the scene. When I heard the explosions, I rushed outside and saw the massive damage there were bodies everywhere, people were crying and screaming, said Haidar Ali, 35, who had by chance stayed in the factory to speak to a colleague. Its the fault of the government and the company. They care only about their own personal safety, and they left the workers without any security. They were very easy targets. A Babil police spokesman confirmed that the two cars exploded in a car park at the factory when workers were leaving and that a third blast targeting rescue workers was heard around an hour later. A police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said security forces had received intelligence of car bombs targeting the city and had searched different parts of it before hearing the explosions. And in the southern port city of Basra, three car bombs at two markets killed 20 people, police said. The first blast struck in a busy market in the centre of the city, 450 kilometres south of Baghdad, at around 6:00 pm (1500 GMT), while two other blasts hit another market in central Basra an hour later. Earlier on Monday, the capital Baghdad was hit by a spate of shootings with automatic weapons against six police or army checkpoints in the east and west of the city, which left seven dead, the interior ministry official said. Two other policemen died in three bombings in south and west Baghdad, he added. The attacks started at 6:30 am (0330 GMT) and ended around 8:00 am (0500 GMT), the official said, noting that nearly all of the wounded were security personnel. A double bomb attack near the mosque in Suwayrah, 60 kilometres southeast of the capital, meanwhile, killed 11 people and wounded 70, a police lieutenant told AFP. Twelve other people were killed in separate attacks around the former Sunni insurgent bastion of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, the northern city of Mosul, in Iskandiriyah, south of Baghdad, and near Tarmiyah, north of the Iraqi capital. Mondays death toll was the highest since December 8, when 127 people were killed in five massive vehicle-borne bombs across the capital. There were more than 20 attacks in total on Monday, which Major General Qassim Atta, a security forces spokesman in Baghdad, said appeared to be a coordinated assault on security and civilian targets. The attacks in far-flung locations including Baghdad and towns in the south, north and west of the capital appeared aimed at showing Iraqis that insurgents were still a potent force even after battlefield defeats in recent weeks. Despite strong strikes that broke Al-Qaeda, there are some cells still working, attempting to prove their existence and their influence, said Baghdads security spokesman, Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, calling the attacks hysterical. The attackers exploited the political disarray that followed a March 7 election that produced no outright winner and pitted a cross-sectarian bloc backed by minority Sunnis against two major Shia-led coalitions.