BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Sectarian violence claimed at least 14 victims around Iraq as Muslims from the bitterly divided Sunni and Shiite communities gathered in their respective mosques to pray for peace.

Preachers at the mosques pleaded for an end to the fighting, which has undermined the authority of Iraq's embattled national unity government.

Iraq is in the grip of a dirty war between rival sectarian and political factions, while local security forces and the U.S. military are battling to restore their authority in the lawless region in and around Baghdad.

"Why are you afraid?" demanded Sheikh Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai -- a follower of Iraq's top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani -- in a message to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government during a sermon in Karbala. "Go out to the people and undergo their circumstances. Live their suffering and the brutality of their lives," he said, his words aimed at government officials who work in Baghdad's heavily fortified "Green Zone."

"Are you afraid of the death facing this wounded people every day and every hour? Are your souls and blood dearer than the souls and blood of the citizens?" he demanded.

Once again, the bulk of the killings were recorded in Diyala province and its capital Baquba, a mixed Sunni and Shiite region just north of Baghdad where death squads and insurgent gangs launch daily attacks.

The capital itself was rocked by a series of explosions in the hours before a vehicle curfew decreed to protect worshippers heading to their rival mosques, but there was no immediate confirmation that anyone had been hurt.

"There were clashes between terrorists and friendly forces in Shuala neighborhood," said Brigadier General Abdul Karim Khalaf, the spokesman at the Iraqi interior ministry's new press office.

Khalaf also said there had been two mortar attacks in Madaen which is south of the capital and is another area of intense sectarian conflict.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have deployed 30,000 personnel in Baghdad for "Operation Together Forward," a combined military and political drive to isolate flashpoints, sweep them for illegal weapons and assert government authority.

U.S. officers believe the campaign has begun to yield results, and that August's death toll for the capital will be much lower than that in July -- the most violent month since the US-led invasion in March 2003. "In the month of July in Baghdad, there were 52 violent actions a day," said brigade commander Colonel Robert Scurlock.

"And in the two weeks since we began the operations, the attacks have dropped down 41 percent."

Outside the capital, however, the carnage continued.

In the Sunni city of Ramadi, a hotbed of insurgents, U.S. troops fired tank shells into a mosque from where they had been attacked with "small arms and machine gun fire, rocket propelled grenades, hand grenades" and a bomb.

"The mosque suffered serious structural damage to the dome and minaret," a U.S. military statement said.

"One coalition force soldier was wounded in the attack and later returned to duty. Enemy and civilian casualties are unknown."

Ten civilians were killed by in separate attacks in and around Baquba -- including three young footballers who were killed in a bomb attack on their pitch which left 11 others wounded -- security forces told AFP.