Baghdad: A roadside bomb killed 13 female employees in Iraq's Trade Ministry and wounded several other people in eastern Baghdad on Monday, police said.

They were travelling to work in a bus when the bomb exploded in the east district of New Baghdad, they said.

Police said the women worked at the Trade Ministry. A security official at the hospital, who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak, said he had counted 13 bodies at the morgue.

Four others were being treated for wounds.

Baghdad security spokesman Major-General Qassim Moussawi said a dozen were killed and most of the victims burned alive inside the bus, according to reports.

A bomb had been attached to the bus itself, he added.