A car bomb exploded in the Iraqi capital on Monday, killing at least 21 people and wounding 43 others in a mainly Shia district in southwestern Baghdad. 

The attack - as Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi met US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC - targeted a busy commercial district of the Hay al-Amel suburb, according to police and hospital officials.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion, which bore all the hallmarks of a suicide attack by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

The group is under assault in both Iraq - in the country's second city of Mosul, which ISIL seized in June 2014 - and in neighbouring Syria.