BAGHDAD - At least 13 people were killed and 72 wounded in a series of car bomb attacks in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad and the southern city of Basra on Monday, the police said.

One of the attacks occurred in the oil-hub city of Basra, some 550 km south of Baghdad, when two car bombs went off almost simultaneously in the western part of the city, leaving at least nine killed and some 30 wounded, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

In Baghdad, five car bombs ripped through different parts of the capital city, killing at least four people and wounding some 42, an Interior Ministry source anonymously told Xinhua.

The toll of the attacks could rise as ambulances and civilian cars were evacuating the victims to different hospitals and medical centers.

Violence and sporadic high-profile bomb attacks are still common in the Iraqi cities despite the dramatic decrease in violence since its peak in 2006 and 2007, when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.