Car bombs and explosions killed eight people, including a policeman and two teenage boys, in and around Baghdad on Sunday, the latest in a spate of attacks indicating an apparent spike in unrest.
The six blasts, which occurred between 7:00 am (0400 GMT) and around 10:30 am, came after a series of explosions in the past week killed at least 116 people over a three day period, breaking a relative calm that had settled after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki formed a new government a month ago.
One car bomb on Sunday targeted a police patrol in Al-Alam neighbourhood of south-west Baghdad killing two people, one of them a policemen, and wounding eight people, among them four police, the official said. Another vehicle packed with explosives was detonated on Abu Nawas street, on the banks of the Tigris river which snakes through the capital, leaving one person dead and six people wounded.