BAGHDAD: Insurgents launched what appeared to be a highly coordinated string of attacks across Iraq on Monday morning, killing at least 32 and wounding more than 200, according to officials.

The attacks, many involving car bombs, erupted less than a week before Iraqis in much of the country are scheduled to vote in the country's first elections since the 2011 US troop withdrawal, testing security forces' ability to prevent bloodshed.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but coordinated attacks are a favorite tactic of Al-Qaeda's Iraq branch.

Iraqi officials believe the insurgent group is growing stronger and increasingly coordinating with allies fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad across the border.

They say rising lawlessness on the Syria-Iraq frontier and cross-border cooperation with a Syrian group, the Nusra Front, has improved the militants' supply of weapons and foreign fighters.