Six people have been killed and the Iraqi Vice-President has been wounded in an explosion at an Iraqi ministry building in Baghdad.
Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Public Works Minister Riad Ghareeb were attending an official ceremony in the Iraqi capital when the blast occurred.
It is understood a bomb had been hidden in the hall where the meeting was taking place.
Both the Vice-President and the Minister were taken to hospital with light shrapnel wounds.
Mr Abdul-Mahdi, a Shia, is one of Iraq's two vice presidents. The other vice president is Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab.
The bombing is the latest blow to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's military crackdown in Baghdad.
Around 100,000 US and Iraqi troops have been deployed around the capital to enforce the two-week old security plan.
