18 killed in series of Iraq market bomb attacks

Eighteen people have been killed in a series of bomb attacks in busy markets in and around Baghdad, Iraqi officials said.

Police said the deadliest attack was when a motorcycle bomb exploded near a line of mobile phone shops in the capital's Shiite district of Sadr City, killing nine and injuring 25 others.

Earlier in the day, a bomb blast in a vegetable wholesale market in a village near the town of Iskandariyah killed four and wounded 14.

Elsewhere, police said a bomb exploded at another market, killing five and injuring 14, in the Shiite village of Sabaa al-Bour, about 20 miles (30km) north of the capital.