At least six people have been killed and more than 60 injured by two car bombs in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, according to a medical source.
Officials claim they killed five suicide bombers after the explosions outside the headquarters of the security forces of the Kurdish Regional Government.
Erbil has escaped most of the spike in violence this year in Iraq. Sunday’s blasts were the first since May 2007, when a truck bomb exploded near the same headquarters, killing 14 people and wounding more than 80.
The deadliest bombing in the city was in summer 2005, when 45 people were slain and 95 injured in a suicide attack on police volunteers.
South of Baghdad, a suicide bomber attacked mourners at a Shiite mosque, killing 40 people and wounding 50.
Five soldiers were killed in Kirkuk Province and three militiamen were slain in Diyala province.
Attacks in Baghdad Province killed five other, among them a primary school teacher shot dead at a school, and gunmen killed a local official in the northern city of Mosul.
Almost 800 people were slain in September and almost 4,600 this year.