Armed men have raided the offices of an Iraqi satellite channel in Baghdad and killed several guards and employees.

Reuters quoted Hasan Kamil, executive manager of Shaabiya, as saying that the assailants had stormed the station's office in eastern Zayuna district at 7am (0400 GMT) on Thursday, killing two guards and five other staff, including the office manager.

Shaabiya is a new channel which so far has only done test broadcasts, Kamil said.

Earlier, the interior ministry said eight guards had been killed in the raid.

Associated Press described the channel as "a new Sunni-Arab television station" that went on the air earlier this year, and quoted police First Lieutenant Muhammad Khayun as saying that four guards were killed in the attack.

An unknown number of armed men pulled up at the station in six cars, stormed into the offices and opened fire, then fled, police Lieutenant Bilal Ali Majid said.

Elsewhere in the capital, a bomb exploded at 7am near a Shia mosque in the Qahira neighbourhood of northeastern Baghdad.

Two minutes later, another bomb exploded nearby, wounding four people who had gathered at the place of the first explosion, police First Lieutenant Ahmad Muhammad Ali said.

A day earlier in Diwaniya, 130km south of Baghdad, armed men broke into the city's Hamza police station, killing one policeman and freeing 10 prisoners who were being held on various criminal charges, police Lieutenant Raid Jabir said.

The raid came at 8.30pm on Wednesday, Jabir said.

The killings come as sectarian violence continues, largely unchecked in the city, despite a security crackdown by US and Iraqi troops intended at curbing car bombings, shootings and death squad killings.

PHOTO CAPTION

A man holds up debris from the wreckage of a vehicle at the scene of bomb attacks at a parking lot in Baghdad October 12, 2006. (Reuters)