BAGHDAD - At least six people were killed and 18 others wounded in two car bomb explosions at commercial areas in the east and north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Tuesday, the police sources said.

In an attack in the Bani Saad town near Diyala's provincial capital of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad, five people were killed and 12 wounded in the afternoon when a booby-trapped car exploded at a marketplace, a provincial police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The powerful blast also destroyed seven nearby shops and damaged several civilian cars, the source added.

Separately, a car bomb went off near a mall at al-Muhandiseen district in northern Mosul city, some 400 km north of Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding six others, a local police source told Xinhua anonymously.

Violence in Iraq has decreased from its climax in 2006 and 2007, when sectarian conflicts pushed the country to the brink of a civil war, but tensions and sporadic shootings and bombings are still common across the country.