At least 35 people have been killed after six bombs rocked the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

It is the second time the capital has come under attack in three days, fuelling fears insurgents are making a return due to a political impasse.

The explosions destroyed residential buildings in mostly Shiite neighbourhoods, with Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim Atta saying four of the bombs detonated inside the buildings.

Ambulance sirens were heard across the city as emergency service workers rushed to the scenes of the blasts, and a large plume of smoke rose from near a bombed restaurant in the neighbourhood of Allawi, central Baghdad.

Dozens of passers-by gathered at the site of the blast, close to a secondary school, to sort through the rubble in a bid to rescue survivors as military helicopters flew overhead.

Along with the Allawi blast, which destroyed two buildings, two bombs struck Shurta Rabiyah, west Baghdad, while one detonated in Chikouk, which houses a camp for internally-displaced persons in the north of the capital.

Bombs also hit Shuala, north Baghdad, and Al-Amil in the south.

The latest explosions come after three suicide vehicle bombings minutes apart targeting regional and European embassies killed 30 people and wounded more than 200 on Sunday.

Gunmen also attacked a village south of Baghdad and killed 24 people on Friday.

Three suicide bombers killed as many as 41 people and wounded more than 200 after they detonated car bombs in a coordinated attack on foreign embassies in central Baghdad.

The blasts, which went off within moments of each other near the Iranian, Egyptian and German embassies, followed mortar attacks on the Iraqi capital’s Green Zone, home to government buildings, official residences and foreign embassies.

The attacks came two days after gunmen slaughtered 24 people in a Sunni village south of Baghdad.

One bomb blew up in front of the main gate of the Iranian embassy, just outside the Green Zone, destroying about 30 cars.

The Iraqi finance ministry said the nearby offices of its budget directorate and the government real estate bank were damaged.

“This is enough. We are tired of explosions. We do not feel safe,” said Jassim Mohammed, 39, who was wounded in the head, arm and leg.

“We go out of our homes and we do not know whether we will come back or not.”

A man who went to the scene began crying and moaning when he realised his brother’s mini-bus had been destroyed by the blast.

“Why did they kill him? He got married a week ago,” he said.

At the Egyptian embassy the bomber rammed his car into a concrete blast wall, blowing a three-metre crater in the street.

“The car crashed into the blast wall and the guards of the embassy shot the terrorist but he went and blew himself up,” Baghdad security spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi said. “The same thing happened with the Iranian embassy.”

Mr Moussawi said Iraqi security forces defused a fourth car bomb in the al-Masbah district of central Baghdad and arrested the would-be bomber.

Iraqi authorities had warned of a possible escalation of violence because of rising tension after a March 7 parliamentary election produced no clear winner.

The outcome promises weeks of potentially divisive talks to form a government.

Sectarian violence exploded when politicians took more than five months to form a government after parliamentary elections in 2005.