BAGHDAD, Iraq - Mortar barrages, roadside bombings and drive-by shootings killed eight Iraqis, officials said today, as Iraq's new government vowed to crack down on the killers of more than 40 people whose bodies were found over the weekend.

Batches of bodies, many blindfolded and bound, were found in various locations over the past two days, from a rubbish-strewn vacant lot in Baghdad's Sadr City to a chicken farm south of the capital in a region dubbed the Triangle of Death.

Few details were available on the possible reasons for the killings. Insurgents regularly target Iraqi security forces, government officials and others deemed to be collaborating with U.S.-led forces in the country. Others are kidnapped and killed to extort ransoms from their families. But there has also been a stream of retaliatory attacks between armed Sunni and Shiite groups.

The spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari condemned the killings and said security forces were determined to catch those responsible.

Over the weekend the bodies of at least 41 people were found. They included two Iraqi journalists found in their car on a road south of Baghdad, 10 soldiers dumped in the battleground city of Ramadi, two truck drivers lying with nine other bodies in the chicken farm and a judge found nearby.

Many of the victims had been blindfolded, bound, shot multiple times in the head and dumped in the open. Most - including the 13 found in Sadr City - had no documents to identify them.

Associated Press Television News obtained footage today showing at least three more bodies, who police said had been shot in the head, being brought into a Baghdad hospital. The bodies had been dumped near a dam in the capital.

Another body was found today. An Iraqi Kurd had been shot in the head and chest and left in a garbage dump in Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, police and witnesses said. An AP writer saw the victim with his hands tied behind his back.

More than 450 people have been killed in a wave of bombings and ambushes launched since the April 28 announcement of the new Iraqi government.

That violence continued with officials saying this morning that mortar rounds, homemade bombs and drive-by shootings killed eight people and injured at least 10.

Four Iraqi soldiers were killed and at least four people wounded after a mortar and roadside bomb attack was launched against a fire station in Khan Bani Saad, a town about 15 miles northeast of Baghdad, said police Col. Mudafar Mohammed.

A roadside bomb killed the soldiers who had raced to the town's fire station, which had come mortar fire attack, Mohammed said.

Two civilians were killed in Baghdad's southwestern Saydiya district when another roadside bomb exploded as an Iraqi army convoy passed, said police Lt. Hussein Alwan. The explosion wounded four people, including two Iraqi civilians, Alwan added.

Saydiya witnessed another attack today when an Iraqi army brigadier general survived an ambush attempt by eight gunmen who attacked his convoy as it entered a traffic intersection.

Soldiers returned fire, killing four gunmen while the remaining militants fled on foot, the spokesman said. Inside the gunmen's cars, soldiers found hand grenades, rifles, mortar rounds and explosives.

Gunmen also killed Baghdad-based policeman Razzaq Ubaid Hinaidi and his wife in a drive-by shooting late Sunday near the village of Aalgaya, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, said Capt. Muthana Khalid Ali. The couple's two children were also badly wounded.

Amid the rampant violence, U.S. and Iraqi forces detained 38 suspected militants in raids Sunday and today in Baghdad and Kirkuk.