Police sacked after Baghdad bombs

At least 20 people have been killed and at least 30 injured in two suicide bomb attacks close to Shia mosques in Baghdad, officials say.

The attacks on Thursday came as Muslim worshippers celebrated Eid al-Fiter, the festival which comes at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

In the first attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up near al-Rasool mosque in the southern Shia neighbourhood of Jadida, killing 12 people and wounding 30, an Iraqi security official said.

"I saw a man rushing to the checkpoint just outside the mosque," Abdul Hussein, a worshipper at the mosque, said.

"I noticed his belt and shouted to my colleagues to stop the man. I also ran towards him but two colleagues ahead of me stopped the man," he said.

The bomber then detonated his explosives, killing the men who tried to him, Hussein said.

In the second attack, eight people were killed when a bomber drove a car laden with explosives car into an Iraqi military armoured vehicle at a checkpoint in the southern district of Zafaraniya, the officials said.

Three soldiers were among those killed in the attack, with another 10 people injured.

In a separate attack, six people were killed on Thursday in a attack by gunmen in the province of Diyala, a region where some of the worst violence has been perpetrated.

The overall level of violence across Iraq has fallen in recent months, according to US military officials, but most of the country remains unstable.