At least seven people were killed when a suicide car bomber hit Iraq's interior ministry in the latest attack since a crisis erupted between the country's Shia-led government and Sunni leaders a week ago.
Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered the arrest of Iraq's Sunni vice president last Monday and asked parliament to fire his deputy, triggering turmoil that threatens a new wave of sectarian strife just after the last US troops withdrew.
The blast occurred when the bomber drove his vehicle into a security cordon outside the Interior Ministry in central Baghdad, detonating an explosion that left dead and wounded on the ground and set fire to nearby vehicles, police said.
The attack on Bab al-Sharji street followed Thursday's wave of explosions in mainly Shia areas across the Iraqi capital in which at least 72 people were killed.
A senior police source said authorities believed insurgents were targeting the ministry because of the announcement of the arrest warrant for Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi.
He has left Baghdad for semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, where he is unlikely to be handed over to central government officials immediately.
The crisis threatens to scuttle an uneasy power-sharing government that splits posts among the Shia National Alliance coalition, the mostly Sunni-backed and Kurdish political movement.
Iraq's Sunni minority have felt marginalised since the rise of the Shia majority after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, and many Sunnis feel the political deal has pushed them aside.
