A bomb blast killed 13 female government employees on a bus on their way to work in eastern Baghdad on Monday, and a female suicide bomber killed five people outside Baghdad's Green Zone compound, police said.

The attacks are the latest in a series of explosions in the Iraqi capital, where violence has broadly fallen but insurgents have shown themselves still able to stage large-scale attacks.

Police said the women worked at the Trade Ministry. A security official at the hospital, who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak, said he had counted 13 bodies at the morgue.

He added that four others were being treated for wounds.

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Baghdad security spokesman Major-General Qassim Moussawi said he had reports that a dozen were killed and that most of the victims burnt alive inside the bus.

He said a bomb had been fastened to the bus itself. Such "sticky bombs" are increasingly being used by militants to assassinate government employees or security officials.

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