At least 22 people were killed and dozens wounded on Monday in a double bomb attack in a market in a Sunni district of Baghdad, security officials said.

The attackers set off a car bomb in Adhamiyah, then a suicide bomber ran into the resulting melee and blew up, according to defence and interior ministry officials.

The Medical City hospital received 37 wounded people, including several women and children and two Iraqi soldiers, a medic said.

An interior ministry official said 43 were wounded.

Witnesses said the attack took place on a street lined with restaurants as a bus carrying school children drove past.

Adhamiyah, a Sunni neighbourhood tucked into the mostly Shiite eastern half of the city, saw fierce clashes at the height of Iraq`s sectarian violence but there has been a sharp reduction in violence there over the last year.

Despite the dramatic improvement in security in large swathes of Iraq, including the capital, militants continue to launch near daily attacks, most of them targeting US and Iraqi security forces.