At least 12 people have been killed after a bomb planted in a lorry exploded in northern Baghdad, according to police.

Another 14 people were wounded when the parked vehicle exploded in a commerical area of the predominantly Sunni district of Adhamiya on Sunday.

The explosion occured just 200 metres away from a passport office, according to police and defence ministry sources.

Several people suffered burns from flames from the powerful blast, witnesses said. Three police officers were reportedly among the wounded.

Elsewhere in the capital, a roadside bomb detonated as a police patrol passed, wounding nine people, six of them civilians.

A third attack, thought to have targeted government vehicles, left two people injured in the southeastern neighbourhood of al-Ghadir.

Violence in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level since 2004, but last Monday at least 32 people were killed when three suicide bombers targeted a Shia pilgrimage in the Iraqi capital.

The attacks came just hours before Iraq's parliament was due to convene for a special session aimed at defusing tensions over a law providing for provincial elections later in the year.

Thousands of Arabs and Turkomen staged a noisy rally in Iraq's northern city of Hawija on Saturday to protest against fresh moves to incorporate the oil-rich Kirkuk region into the autonomous Kurdish region.

Also on Monday, a suicide bomber targeted a Kurdish protest over the issue killing at least 25 people.

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