Four people were killed and 17 injured Thursday when a car bomb exploded in the Iraqi province of Babil, some 100 kilometres south of the capital Baghdad, according to police sources, dpa reported.
The dead included a woman, a child and two policemen, the al-Sumaria news website reported.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Violence in Iraq had steadily dropped after Sunni-Shiite bloodshed peaked in 2006.
But bombings and attacks are now becoming an almost daily event again, often targeting security personnel across the country.