Six people were killed and more than 40 wounded when a car bomb struck a Shiite mosque after the Friday prayers in a village in northern Iraq, police said.

The attack took place shortly after the weekly Friday prayers in the village of Tal Banat near the town of Sinjar, some 110 km west of the northern city of Mosul.

Earlier, an Interior Ministry source said that five people were killed and 10 others wounded when a car bomb and a mortar round exploded near two Sunni mosques in western and central Baghdad respectively shortly after the Friday prayers.

A car bomb went off near a Sunni mosque in the Jihad neighborhood in western Baghdad shortly after worshippers left the mosque after Friday prayers, killing two Iraqi children and wounding three, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

In a separate incident, a mortar round landed at the Nedaa Sunni mosque in central Baghdad just after the Friday prayers, killing three worshippers and wounding seven, the source added.

Attacks on mosques have intensified amid heightened tensions between Shiites and Sunnis since the Feb. 22 bombing of a key Shiite shrine in the northern town of Samarra, an incident that stoked reprisal attacks and sectarian violence.

Source: Xinhua