A suicide attacker detonated an explosives-packed car at the headquarters of Iraq's Shiite religious endowment in central Baghdad on Monday, killing at least eight people, medics said.

The 11:00 am (0800 GMT) attack also left more than 35 people wounded, two medical officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Among the dead were two policemen.

Monday's attack at the Shiite endowment's headquarters in the Baab al-Muadham neighbourhood comes amid a dispute between Iraq's Shiite and Sunni religious endowments over control of a landmark shrine north of Baghdad.

Shiite authorities had sought to take over management of the Al-Askari shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad and the site of an Al-Qaeda suicide attack in February 2006 that ignited the worst of Iraq's sectarian conflict.

The latest violence comes less than a week after a spate of bombings in Baghdad left 17 dead on May 31, shattering a relative calm in the Iraqi capital.