Residents pull victims out of a burning minibus shortly after a bomb exploded in Baghdad August 27, 2006. A car bomb in central Baghdad killed five people and wounded 10 on Sunday, police said. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery >>>

    BAGHDAD, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- Two powerful explosions rocked the Iraqi capital on Sunday morning, causing high casualties, while the prime minister insisted violence was decreasing in his country.

    A bomb-rigged mini-van detonated near an entrance to the Palestine Hotel in downtown Baghdad, killing at least nine people and wounding 15 others, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.

    "A minibus detonated at about 10:30 a.m. (0630 GMT) while traveling on Sa'adon Street between Baghdad Hotel and Meridian Hotel," the source said.

    "Black smoke rose over the area where the minibus detonated," witnesses at the scene also told Xinhua, adding another vehicle caught fire near the area and volunteers were evacuating bodies and wounded people.

    Earlier on Sunday, another car bomb went off in the parking lot of the state-run al-Sabah newspaper building in Baghdad's northern neighborhood of Waziriyah, killing two civilians and wounding 20 others.

    At least 25 cars caught fire in the blast, and the newspaper building was badly damaged.

    "The powerful blast damaged the production department in the building. It was the second time I survived deadly attacks. I am going to quit my job here. It is so risky," Jamal Muhammed, an employee of the daily told Xinhua by telephone.

    The Sunday's bloody blasts were seen as the latest challengers to Iraqi government's peace efforts to stem uprising violence.

    On Saturday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met several hundreds tribal leaders across the country for the first time. He appealed to them to exert their influence in a bid to promote the stagnant national reconciliation process.

    Since the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra on Feb.22, Iraq has been engulfed in tit-for-tat Shiite-Sunni violence that has killed thousands and pushed the country on the brink of a civil war.

    Al-Maliki proposed a 24-point national reconciliation plan in June with a view to quell the sectarian bloodshed, but failed to curb the rampant violence.

    In an exclusive interview with CNN on Sunday, al-Maliki said violence in Iraq was decreasing , despite daily reports of attacks. He also insisted that his government was making progress in efforts to combat the Shiites-Sunnis sectarian violence and terrorism by insurgents.

    "The violence is not increasing. We're not in a civil war. Iraq will never be in a civil war. The violence is in decrease and our security ability is increasing," the premier said through an interpreter.

    Al-Maliki echoed General John Abizaid, a top U.S. general in the Middle East, who said last week that a major security crackdown launched by U.S. and Iraqi troops since August had achieved progress and Iraq was far from civil war.

    Though the statistics show violence have dropped in Iraq, some analysts cautioned it was too early to be optimistic and the gains would be lost unless the Iraqi government reconciles rival religious sects. Enditem

Residents and a policeman pull a victim out of a burning minibus shortly after a bomb exploded in Baghdad August 27, 2006.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery >>>