At least 17 people were killed and dozens more wounded by a wave of car bombings in central Baghdad today, most of them in a predominantly Shi'ite district, police and witnesses said.
The bombings came as Iraq's deeply divided government prepared to host a second round of rare talks between arch rivals Iran and the United States in the capital on Tuesday to discuss Iraqi security.
Three of four separate car bombings tore through Baghdad's Karrada district on the eastern side of the Tigris River, two of them exploding almost simultaneously near a government office and a busy market area about 500 metres away.
One went off near a Karrada office which issues identity cards to Iraqis. Police said that bomb appeared to target a passing police patrol and that three police officers were among six people killed. Twenty more people were hurt.
"It was a horrible scene, suddenly fire spread all over the area. I saw two charred bodies of policemen inside their car and the wounded were lying on the ground, only their hands moving and asking for help," Abu Nour, a 45-year-old supermarket owner, said.
"We were terrified, we could see only fire, destruction and death. I started to hate life," he said.
Television pictures showed a line of burning cars in a narrow street leading to the identity card office as residents and shoppers ran for cover.
Four more people were killed and another 18 wounded in the almost simultaneous blast nearby in an area close to one of the main bridges leading across the Tigris river to the heavily fortified Green Zone.
Less than an hour later another car bomb, again apparently targeting a passing police patrol, detonated in Karrada's al-Wathiq square, killing three people. Two policemen were among the dead.
Four more people died soon after when a car bomb exploded at lunchtime outside Seerwan, Baghdad's most popular kebab restaurant, across the Tigris next to the Green Zone.
The US military began a security crackdown in Baghdad five months ago in an attempt to stem bombings, many of them blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, and sectarian killings between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.
US and Iraqi forces launched another big operation in mid-June in areas around Baghdad after the crackdown in the capital forced al Qaeda fighters and insurgents out of the capital into surrounding provinces.
The security operations coincided with the arrival of 28,000 extra US troops.