A car bomb blast has killed 12 people and wounded 22 others in Baghdad.

Police said women and children were among the bomb victims.

The bomb struck a busy market in the Abu Dsheer neighbourhood, a mainly Shia district on the southern outskirts of the Iraqi capital.

Violence in Iraq has fallen to a four-year low in recent months but militants are still carrying out frequent large-scale bomb attacks.

US and Iraqi authorities usually blame Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda militants for car bombs and suicide attacks against civilian targets.