MOSUL: A car bomb exploded inside a residential complex housing displaced Shia Muslims in the Iraqi city of Mosul on Monday, killing at least eight people and wounding four, hospital and police sources said.

The bombing was the latest in a series of attacks on Shia pilgrims and other targets since a political crisis erupted a month ago in Iraq's fragile power-sharing government, split among Shia, Sunni Muslim and Kurdish blocs.

“The hospital received eight bodies including four women, three children and a man and another four wounded,” said Laith Habbaba, manager of the Hamdaniya Hospital in Mosul.

Police confirmed the number of casualties.

On Saturday, a suicide bomber disguised as a policeman killed at least 53 people and wounded scores in an attack on Shia pilgrims at a checkpoint in the southern city of Basra.

Political tensions in Iraq have been high since December when Shia Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government ordered the arrest of a Sunni vice president, touching off a crisis that has many fearing a relapse into sectarian conflict.

Mosul, 390 kilometres north of Baghdad, was once an al Qaeda stronghold, and witnessed some of the fiercest fighting during the war that followed the 2003 US-led invasion.