A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle in a Shiite majority neighbourhood of Baghdad Wednesday, killing at least nine people, an interior ministry official said.

Thirty others were wounded in the explosion in the Habibiya area, near the vast district of Sadr City in northern Baghdad, the official said.

A hospital official and a colonel in the Baghdad police confirmed the toll from the blast, which struck in an area where many car dealerships are found.

On Tuesday a car bomb explosion in southern Baghdad killed at least four people, according to the same sources.

The Iraqi capital was rocked by a wave of deadly suicide bombings during the first days of 2017 but relatively few explosions had been reported since.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Wednesday's blast but nearly all suicide attacks are claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group, which is defending its last major Iraqi bastion of Mosul against a massive, four-month-old operation by the security forces.