By Xinhua
Baghdad : Three people were killed and six others injured when two car bombs detonated coordinately outside a fuel station near an office of a key Shiite party in central Baghdad on Monday, an Interior Ministry source said.
“The two explosions at midday were caused by two booby trapped cars parked at a queue of cars outside the al-Hurriyah fuel station in Karrada, killing up to three people and wounding six others,” the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The two car bombs detonated almost simultaneously, the source said.
The location of the incident was also close to the entrance of the office of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), which is headed by the powerful Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who is also heads the major Shiite bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, in the Iraqi parliament.
Earlier, the source put the toll at one killed and four others injured, citing first police reports.
In separate incident, the source said that a mortar round landed on the heavily fortified Green Zone, which house the Iraqi government offices and foreign embassies, including the U.S. one, without knowing whether the attack caused any casualty.
A Xinhua correspondent said that he heard a powerful blast and saw smoke rising on the verge of the Green Zone.
The U.S. military has no immediate comment on the incident.