BAGHDAD, March 15 (Xinhuanet) -- A car bomb blew up on Tuesday morning near a Sunni mosque and the health ministry in central Baghdad, wounding six people, including a police officer, said police.

    "I was driving my car near the booby trapped vehicle before the explosion, it was empty, there was no driver in it," Lieutenant Colonel Muhannad Saadoun, who was injured in the blast, told Xinhua.

    The blast took place at about 8:30 a.m. (0530 GMT) when a white Chevrolet detonated inside a parking lot used by the health ministry employees, Saadoun said.

    "The five other wounded people were all civilians and not workers in the ministry," Saadoun pointed out.

    Five other cars were badly damaged and window glasses of the nearby buildings were smashed by the blast.

    Ambulances and fire trucks rushed to the scene as Iraqi security forces and US troops sealed off the area, where the blast left a crater of about one meter inside the parking lot.

    The attack was not far from the Adilah Khatoun mosque in a mainly Sunni Muslim area adjacent to the Al-Adhamiyah district.

    The powerful explosion could be heard across the capital as a plume of white smoke rose above the area.

    Insurgents have been increasingly targeting officials of the interim government since the landmark elections were held earlier this year, accusing them of collaborating with US-led foreign forces. Enditem