Groups of men wearing military uniforms detonated explosives at two mosques overnight Monday in the Hilla region, south of Baghdad, and a muezzin was shot dead near his home in Iskandariyah.

Groups of men wearing military uniforms detonated explosives at two mosques overnight Monday in the Hilla region, south of Baghdad, and a muezzin - the person appointed to recite the Muslim call to prayer - was shot dead near his home in Iskandariyah, police and medics said.

A police officer said the Ammar bin Yasser mosque in Bakerli neighborhood In Hilla, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the capital was bombed after midnight.

"After we heard the explosion, we went to its source and found that IEDs (improvised explosive devices) had been planted in the mosque," the captain said.

"Residents said a group of people with military uniforms carried out this operation," he said, adding that 10 houses were also damaged by the explosion.

The Al-Fateh mosque in a village called Sinjar, just outside Hilla, was also damaged in similar circumstances.

The police captain said three or four men in military uniforms were involved in that bombing.

"They took advantage of the cold weather, there was nobody outside," he said.

A medical source in Hilla said three people were wounded in the explosions.