BAGHDAD, July 21 (AFP) - At least three people were killed when a car bomb ripped through a residential neighbourhood in Baghdad on Wednesday sending body parts hurtling onto the roof of nearby houses, police and witnesses said.
"Three people are dead in a car bomb," a police officer at the site of the blast told AFP, declining to be named.
Three mutilated bodies were seen covered in white and green cloth near to where the blast occurred down a small side street flanked by low-level apartments in southeast Baghdad, an AFP correspondent said.
"The car does not belong to anyone in the neighbourhood. Someone came, put it there and left," said Hashim Hussein, 28, who lives in the area.
"There were five men standing in the street next to the car who are the victims of the explosion which was very powerful to the extent that body parts were thrown to the roof of the neighbouring houses," said Hussein, a freelance photographer.
"We collected the parts and dropped them down on to the street," he added.
A smoldering wreck of twisted metal, corndoned off by Iraqi police, was all that was left of the car.
Fire engines appeared on the scene to douse the flames, the AFP reporter said, adding that at least three other cars in the area had been damaged.