Three Iraqis were killed and eight others wounded in a roadside bomb explosion in southern Baghdad on Sunday, a well-informed police source said.

A roadside bomb detonated in the Zaafaraniyah neighborhood in the morning, killing three people and wounding eight others, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Separately, more than a dozen of large explosions rocked southern areas of the capital at about 9:00 a.m. (0500 GMT) but the cause was unclear.

Brigadier General Qassim Atta, spokesman of the security crackdown told the state-run television Al-Iraqiya, that the blasts were part of the joint U.S. and Iraqi security plan without specifying what caused the blasts.

Violence persists in Baghdad despite the presence of tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers across the capital in a major security crackdown aimed at curbing insurgency and sectarian violence in the war-torn country.

Source: Xinhua