KIRKUK, Nov 22: A suicide car bomb blast killed 18 people, including 10 police, and wounded 28 others in an attack in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, police and doctors at Kirkuk’s main hospital said.

The bomber detonated his explosives-laden car near police vehicles on the main road leading south out of Kirkuk to Baghdad. Ten of those killed were police, Colonel Borhan Tayyib Taha said. Some of the wounded were also police, he said.

The US military surrounded the blast site soon after the attack. Police sources said they expected the toll to rise as many of those hurt were badly wounded. Ambulances ferried the worst cases to hospitals in Kirkuk.

The attack follows a string of suicide blasts and car bomb strikes across the country in the past five days and in the build-up to elections set for Dec 15.

At least 160 people were killed in three days of violence last Friday and over the weekend, including 77 Shias killed in twin suicide bomb attacks on mosques in the mixed Kurdish and Shia city of Khanaqin.

Kirkuk, a mixed Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen city 250kms north of Baghdad, has seen frequent episodes of violence, some caused by tensions between the various communities, all of whom claim ownership of the city, which sits on oil reserves. —Reuters