Twin car bombs kill six in Baghdad

Two explosions killed 18 people and wounded 50 in Baghdad today as Gordon Brown was in town on a visit.

The first blast was from a car bomb. Moments later a nearby roadside bomb went off targeting people rushing to the scene in the Nahdha neighbourhood, near a traffic police station and a hospital.

Police and traffic police were among the casualties.

The US military said a roadside bomb exploded near an American patrol hours earlier in the same area but there were no deaths or injuries.

Violent attacks have dropped sharply in Iraq, where the US-led invasion in 2003 unleashed years of sectarian bloodshed and insurgent violence, but car bombs, assassinations and other attacks still occur routinely.