A car bomb went off near Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's party headquarters in Baghdad on Monday, killing three people and injuring 25 others, police said. The blast took place at 9:45 am (0645 GMT) in Baghdad's western district of Harithiya that leads to the offices of Allawi's Iraqi National Accord party. The street also leads to the heavily guarded Green Zone area, which houses the offices of the Iraqi government as well as the U.S. and the British embassies. Police said that a yellow car tried to hit a checkpoint that secures the area but rammed into a police truck and exploded. Iraqi policemen fired shots in the air to clear the scene after the explosion and the U.S. army sealed off the area. Medics reported that three people were killed, including two police officers, and 25 injured, including 18 policemen. A top government official said that Allawi was safe and that he wasn't near the scene of the blast. "Most of the casualties have been among the security forces manning the checkpoint. No one senior from the Iraqi National Accord was hurt," the official, who demanded anonymity, said.