Car bombing kills five in Baghdad

Police were among those injured in the first car bombing

A car bomb has exploded near a courthouse in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, killing at least five people.

The Iraqi interior ministry said 10 others were wounded in the attack in the west of the city.

In other violence in Baghdad, a bus driver was killed, a car bomb injured at least 12, while police found the bodies of six people tortured to death.

Meanwhile insurgents reportedly attacked an oil pipeline south of the city, shutting down a power station.

The latest violence comes a day after at least 24 people were killed by car bombings in Baghdad and Karbala.

'Body mutilated'

Gunmen ambushed a bus carrying government employees to work in Baghdad, killing the driver, police said.

Police Capt Jamil Hussein said the driver had been killed and a policeman who was guarding the bus wounded.

In a separate incident that appeared to be a sectarian killing, police recovered the bodies of six men which bore signs of torture.

"One of the six bodies was of a man brutally chopped into pieces and dumped in a sack in the northern Kadimiyah neighbourhood of Baghdad," an unnamed interior ministry official was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

Bodies of victims have been found across Iraq in the past few weeks, in what seem to be deliberate targeting by insurgents of Shias or Sunnis.

A car bomb exploded on Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad on Monday, wounding at least 12 Iraqi police and bystanders.

Reuters news agency says the blast followed an earlier bomb explosion at the scene, in which two civilians were injured.

South of Baghdad, insurgents targeted an oil pipeline, shutting Mussayab power station, according to AP.

Militants have previously tried to disrupt the flow of oil in Iraq by bombing pipelines and terminals as part of the wider insurgency campaign.