Car bombs kill eight in central Baghdad -police

BAGHDAD, July 8 (Reuters) Six people were killed today by a car bomb parked on a busy shopping street in central Baghdad, police said, and two more people perished in a second blast in the capital.

Seven people were wounded in the first attack, in the mainly Shi'ite district of Karrada, the police said.

The second car bomb was near a hotel used by westerners in the southern neighbourhood of Jadriya, police said.

Five people were wounded in that attack, near the al-Hamra hotel, although the hotel itself was not being targeted, police said. Jadriya is also mainly Shi'ite.

Scores of people died in bombings on Saturday in Iraq as violence flared after several days of relative calm.

Tens of thousands of US and Iraqi troops have launched a major security clampdown to thwart sectarian violence between majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni Arabs, which has driven Iraq to the brink of all-out civil war.

REUTERS GL RK1325