BAGHDAD - Two cars loaded with explosives on Thursday hit a military checkpoint in Baghdad and a market in northern Salahuddin province, killing at least 8 people and wounding 13 others in, an Iraqi interior ministry source said.

A suicide bomber drove the bomb-rigged car into the checkpoint of al-Amria district in Baghdad and detonated, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

One leader of local Sahwa, a Sunni paramilitary group that fight against al-Qaida together with the Iraqi government, was among those dead, the source added.

A witness told Xinhua that some shops and buildings near the blast site were badly damaged, local police later imposed a curfew around the market.

Earlier in the day, an Iraqi policeman was killed and nine people were injured in separate bomb attacks in Baghdad and the eastern province of Diyala.

Sporadic attacks still common in the Iraqi cities three months after the country held its landmark parliamentary election which is widely expected to shape the political landscape of the war- torn country.