Eight people were killed when a car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint south of Baghdad on Thursday

Eight people were killed when a car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint south of Baghdad on Thursday.
  
The blast five kilometers (three miles) north of the city of Hilla also wounded 20 people, a police captain and a doctor said.

This comes one day after a bomb exploded near the education minister's convoy in north Iraq Wednesday and other attacks killed 13 people as the country struggles with daily violence ahead of elections next week.