A car bomb at a police station in central Baghdad killed four people and wounded eight late Friday night, according to Iraqi police and hospital officials.
Saad Mann, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry and Baghdad Operations Command, told the Associated Press the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber and that only three were killed in the blast. He said all those killed were policemen. He did not offer any information as to the number of injured.
The differing accounts could not be immediately reconciled.
The explosion targeted an entrance to the traffic police station in Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood. Moments after the attack, the burning shell of a car could be seen sending up a plume of thick black smoke as police fired into the air to disperse a small crowd.
Hospital and police officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
The attack came as Iraqi forces struggled to push back Islamic State group militants in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the last pocket of significant urban territory the group holds in Iraq.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but IS has carried out similar attacks targeting Iraqi security forces in the past. Iraqi and coalition officials have warned that as IS loses ground in Iraq the group will increasingly return to its insurgent roots.
Last July, a massive truck bombing in the same Baghdad neighborhood killed more than 300 people on a busy street lined with shopping malls. The attack was the deadliest single bombing in Baghdad since U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
