**A car bomb outside a church in eastern Baghdad has killed four people and injured 21, Iraqi police say.**The bomb went off on Sunday evening and could be heard around the city.
The bombing came after three other churches were targeted by smaller bombs, injuring seven people but killing none, reports said.
There are some 750,000 people in Iraq’s Christian community. Christian targets have been attacked in the past, but are spared much of Iraq’s deadly violence.
They have been targeted in some areas of the country, mainly in Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul.
However, most of the violence in Iraq is sectarian in nature and targets either Sunni or Shia Muslims.
The last bomb of the day went off near a church on Palestine Street, the Reuters news agency said.
Sunday’s earlier bombs were hidden in cardboard boxes, the BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse reports from Baghdad. One bomb caused some injuries but no-one was killed, and two of the bombs hurt no-one.
The attacks came on the day a senior general in Iraq’s military said insurgent attacks could be expected to continue for several more years.
Levels of violence have dipped sharply in recent years, but the remarks suggested Iraqi leaders are expecting continued sporadic attacks by militant cells after the US pulls out combat forces from Iraq by the end of 2011.