Eight people were killed on Friday as a car bomb went off near one of Baghdad’s landmark hotels and suicide attacker blew himself up in a restaurant north of the Iraqi capital.

Eight people were killed on Friday as a car bomb went off near one of Baghdad's landmark hotels and suicide attacker blew himself up in a restaurant north of the Iraqi capital.

The explosives-laden vehicles rocked the central Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada, near the upmarket Babylon hotel that overlooks the Tigris.

A police colonel said at least three people were killed and 12 others wounded in the blast, which occurred at a time when many civilians gather for midday Friday prayers.
A hospital official confirmed the toll.

In a separate attack in Mashahdah, a town around 40 kilometers north of Baghdad, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives vest in a restaurant, killing at least five people, an official at the interior ministry said.

Most of the casualties of the blast, which also left 15 people wounded, were members of the Popular Mobilisation units, an umbrella group under which many Shiite militias have been fighting jihadists alongside government forces.

Mashahdah straddles the main northbound road from Baghdad to the northern front of the battle against the Islamic State group, including cities such as Samarra and Tikrit.