Twenty-five people have been killed in a series of attacks in Baghdad, including 15 in a car bomb blast, an Interior Ministry official says.

A bomber, driving a car, detonated his explosives at around 8am (0400 GMT) outside an army recruiting post in al-Muthana, a former airfield in the centre of Baghdad, killing 15 people, the official said.

Nine police officers were shot to death in their squad cars in two attacks.

Armed men opened fire on two police cars, killing six police officers, in the south of the capital at about 6am (0200 GMT). The attackers then burned the cars.

An Iraqi journalist, Muhammad Abd Allah, told Aljazeera that the attack targeted two patrols of Iraqi police in the al-Saydiya district south of Baghdad.

In another attack, armed men opened fire on two police cars in eastern Baghdad, killing three police officers. Three others managed to flee.

Abd Allah said fighters threw a bomb into the second vehicle but the police prevented the bomb from detonating.

In addition, a guard was killed in a car bomb attack on the home of a deputy interior minister in the capital, Abd Allah said.

Major-General Hikmat Musa Salman was not hurt in the attack as he was not at his home when the car bomb exploded in the al-Kafa'at neighbourhood west of Baghdad.

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