Two car bombs in Baghdad killed 18 people and wounded 62 today.
Ten people were killed in a car bomb in the religiously mixed neighbourhood of Saidiya in southern Baghdad. A further 20 were wounded.
The second explosion, in a vehicle workshop in central Baghdad, killed eight people and wounded 40, police said.
Some of those hurt or killed were burnt after a fire followed the bombing in the Sheikh Omar district.
Five bank officials were kidnapped in another part of Baghdad after gunmen wearing police uniforms and using police cars attacked an armoured truck delivering cash. The robbers stole around 500 million dinars (€300,000).
Today's violence comes as US and Iraqi security forces prepare to implement a crackdown in the capital, seen as a last-ditch effort to quell soaring sectarian violence between majority Shias and once-dominant Sunni Arabs.