The death toll from two car bomb attacks in western and northern Baghdad on Sunday rose to 18 while 100 people were wounded, an Interior Ministry source said.?

The two blasts occurred almost simultaneously at about 10:15 a. m. local time (0715 GMT). A booby-trapped car detonated at the al- Zuhour auction near the al-Liqaa Square in Baghdad's western neighborhood of Mansour, the source said.

Iraqi security forces sealed off the scene as sirens of ambulances could be heard at the site of the blast, a witness near the scene said.

Earlier the source put the toll at?12 killed and?45 wounded.?

Violence and sporadic high-profile attacks are still common in Iraqi cities as part of recent deterioration in security which shaped a setback to the efforts of the Iraqi government to restore normalcy in the country more than six months after violence-torn Iraq held parliamentary elections on March 7.