A suicide car bomb outside a police station in east Baghdad has killed at least 25 people and injured 33.
Around 22 cars, 10 shops and a residential building were set ablaze in the massive explosion outside Al-Rashid police station in the Al-Mashtel neighbourhood in the southeast of the capital.
Television pictures showed a deep crater in the road outside the Rashad police station, as ambulances and fire fighters attended the scene.
There has been a campaign of more than 20 suicide car bomb attacks in and near the capital in the past 10 days, killing more than 200 people.
The bombing occurred as Sunni Arab leaders were considering ending a boycott of talks on a constitution to lay out Iraq's future following the ousting of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.
With a 15 August deadline looming for parliament to vote on a draft constitution, Sunni Arab leaders had said they would reconsider their boycott of the committee writing the basic law.
The boycott was called following the murder by insurgents of two Sunni members of the committee.
Sunni Arabs, who make up around a fifth of the population, dominated Saddam Hussein's regime and all previous Iraqi governments but are currently under-represented because much of the community boycotted January elections.
