Transport ministry assault kills 20 in Iraq

At least 20 people have been killed after eight armed men assaulted an office of Iraq's transportation ministry in northeastern Baghdad, security officials said.

Four out of the eight men are believed to have been killed in clashes with security forces.

The armed men also briefly took a number of civil servants hostages before security officials regained control.

Security forces sealed off the surrounding area, which is home to other government offices, including the headquarters of the transport ministry and a human rights ministry building.

No group claimed responsibility for the assault, but fighters affiliated with the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have in the past mounted similar armed attacks on Iraqi government buildings.

Elsewhere in the Iraqi capital on Thursday, bombings near a market and a restaurant in the Shia-majority neighbourhoods of Kasra and Talbiyah killed six people, security and medical officials said.

They struck just hours after several car bombs ripped through Baghdad Jadidah, Shuala and Talbiyah, all of which are predominantly Shia, leaving nine people dead on Wednesday evening.

Attacks on Wednesday also hit the outskirts of the capital, as well as the northern cities of Mosul and Tuz Khurmatu, killing seven others.

Recent violence in Iraq has pushed the death toll for January past 900 with elections looming in three months and security forces have been grappling with intensifying violence and an extended standoff with anti-government fighters in western Anbar province.

ISIL has been involved in the fighting, and witnesses and tribal leaders in Fallujah say the group has tightened its grip on the city in recent days, but other armed groups have also taken part in the battles.

The standoff has forced more than 140,000 people to flee their homes, the UN refugee agency said, describing this as the worst displacement in Iraq since the 2006-2008 sectarian conflict.