Attacks mostly targeting cafes in and around Baghdad killed 17 people, AFP quoted officials as saying on Friday.

Attacks mostly targeting cafes in and around Baghdad killed 17 people, AFP reported on Friday.

The blasts on Thursday evening struck cafes in the central city of Baquba, and a town south of the capital.

In Baquba, one of Iraq's most violent cities, a car bomb went off near a cafe in the center of the city and, when passers-by rushed to help the casualties, the attackers detonated a second bomb.

In all, 12 people were killed and 35 wounded, AFO quoted security and medical officials as saying.

On Thursday evening, in Baghdad's neighbourhood of Adhamiyah, an explosion near another cafe killed four people and wounded 14. Two blasts in the town of Jbela, south of the capital, wounded three.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, separate attacks killed a barber and wounded nine other people.