Deadly car bombs across Baghdad

An Iraqi police official said a car bomb ripped through a Shiite majority area where people gather to buy and sell vehicles.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the latest attack, according to monitoring group SITE. The militant group said that they had targeted a gathering of soldiers, police and Shiite muslims.

IS frequently targets Shiite neighborhoods whom it considers heretics, thus fuelling sectarian tensions in the country, and often strikes areas such as markets and cafes where crowds gather.

In and around the capital there were other bombings. The largest was in the town of Madain, just south of Baghdad, when a bomb went off at a popular market killing three people and wounding 10 according to police.

In the town of Taji, north of Baghdad, a bomb hit a row of auto repair shops, killing two people and injuring eight.

Baghdad's al-Askan district saw an improvised explosive device go off on a busy commercial street, killing at least two people and wounding eight. And police said two people were killed and seven wounded in Baghdad's southeastern suburb of Jisr Diyala when a bomb exploded.

IS overran large parts of Iraq in June 2014 and also holds significant territory in neighboring Syria.

av/bw (AP, AFP, Reuters)