BAGHDAD, Iraq - A car bomb exploded in a town south of Baghdad today, killing two people and injuring 10, the latest in a spate of attacks that have killed some 150 people in the last four days.

Meanwhile today, militants released a Turkish man taken hostage in Iraq, according to a videotape obtained by Associated Press Television News.

"Today the Mujahedeen released me and I will go to the embassy," said the man, identified as Aytulla Gezmen. He was shown standing next to a masked man before getting into a car. It was not immediately clear where the release of the Arabic language translator took place.

On a road north of Baghdad, the Iraqi National Guard found three beheaded bodies without documents today, an Interior Ministry official said.

The male bodies were discovered near Dijiel, about 25 miles north of Baghdad, and all had tattoos, said Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman of the Interior Ministry. A U.S. military official speaking on condition of anonymity said the bodies appeared to be Iraqis and that their hands were tied behind their backs.

The latest car bomb targeted a National Guard checkpoint in Suwayrah, about 40 miles south of Baghdad, Abdul-Rahman said. One national guardsman was among the dead, said Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman, an Interior Ministry official. He said 10 people were hurt.

The bombing followed attacks Tuesday that saw guerrillas bomb a Baghdad shopping street full of police recruits and fire on a police van north of the capital. At least 59 people were killed, bringing the three-day total of dead up to then to nearly 150.

The violence appeared to be part of an increasingly brazen and coordinated campaign to bring the battle to Baghdad, sowing chaos in the center of authority for Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and his American allies.

The insurgent attacks appear to have only grown deadlier since Allawi's interim government took power in June despite U.S. claims that Iraqi security forces are showing more resolve against the strikes.

The Tawhid and Jihad group, headed by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, posted a Web statement claiming responsibility for Tuesday's car bombing. The al-Qaida-linked group launched a surprise assault in Baghdad on Sunday, killing dozens, and boasted it had the upper hand in the fight against the Americans.

The morning car bombing Tuesday was the deadliest single attack in Baghdad in six months, wrecking buildings and cars on central Haifa Street, leaving charred bodies and hurling body parts, shoes and debris into nearby trees and homes.

In Baqouba, northeast of the capital, gunmen in two cars opened fire Tuesday on a van carrying policemen, killing 11 officers and a civilian, said Qaisar Hamid of Baqouba General Hospital. Also Tuesday, clashes between U.S. troops and insurgents killed at least eight civilians and wounded 18 in Ramadi, a predominantly Sunni Muslim city west of the capital where anti-American sentiments are high.

The release of the Turkish man came a day after a militant group said in a separate video that it would free Gezmen, who the militants had accused of working for the Americans. It threatened to behead all those who deal with coalition forces here.

"The Shura Council of the Mujahedeen decided to release the Turkish hostage after he has converted to Islam and has repented for working with the infidel American occupation forces," a masked man said in a statement read out on Tuesday's tape.