BAGHDAD: Two car bombs claimed by the militant Islamic State (IS) group killed at least 14 people and wounded 37 others in the centre of the southern Iraqi city of Samawa on Sunday, police said.

The first blast was near a local government building and the second one about 60 metres away at a bus station, police sources said.

Unverified online photographs showed a large plume of smoke rising above the buildings as well as burnt out cars and bodies on the ground at the site of one of the blasts, including several children. Police and firefighters carried victims on stretchers and in their arms.

IS holds positions mostly in areas of the country's north and west, far from the southern provinces where Samawa is located. Such attacks are relatively rare..

The quota-based governing system put in place by the United States at the time is being challenged by hundreds of protesters who camped out overnight in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone after storming the parliament building.