Up to 42 people were killed when two roadside bombs exploded within minutes of each other in Baghdad, according to police and medical officials.

Major-General Qassim Moussawi, spokesman for Iraqi security operations in Baghdad, said the blasts occurred in a shopping area in the central Karrada district injuring another 120 people.

"Two roadside bombs exploded in succession. There are a number of casualties," he said.

Dozens of shopfronts and cars were damaged in the explosion, witnesses said.

"I saw a leg and a hand falling near me as I was walking. The whole place was a mess," Hassan Abdullah, a clothing store owner, said.

"Wounded people were crying for help and people started to run away. Police pickups and ambulances arrived at the scene to pick the casualties.

"The aim of such attacks is the random killing of as many people as possible in order to terrorize the Iraqi people," he told the Associated Press news agency.

On Monday, two bomb blasts in central and eastern Baghdad killed 19 people, despite an increase in security for the visit of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian president.

PHOTO CAPTION

An Iraqi soldier gestures to a motorist at a makeshift checkpoint in central Baghdad setup following a suicide bomb attack in Baghdad's Karrada neighbourhood on February 17, 2008.

Al-Jazeera