KIRKUK, Aug 10: A car bomb tore through a bustling fruit and vegetable market in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Friday killing seven people in a mass of charred metal, while south of Baghdad a US military helicopter made a forced landing.

The helicopter came down in a rebel hotspot during a raid and two US soldiers were wounded. The military could not immediately confirm or deny whether the aircraft had come under fire.

In the car bomb attack on the al-Hurriyah market in eastern Kirkuk at least two women and a child were among the dead, said Brigader General Burhan Hamid Tayeb, police chief in the oil city.

Another 47 people were rushed for medical treatment, 10 of them in a serious condition, said police Colonel Bastun Mahmud at the Azadi hosppital, where many of the casualties were taken.

Rescue workers helped by civilians sifted through the charred metal from incinerated stalls in the search for victims.

Kirkuk, a fraught mosaic of Arab, Kurd and Turkmen communities, is a favoured hotspot for a mesh of militants operating in Iraq's brutal sectarian conflict and overlapping insurgency.

An earlier roadside bomb against a police patrol in the city, killed one civilian, police said.

A shopkeeper was also killed on Friday inside his shop in a drive-by shooting in Kirkuk, police Captain Shawan Abdallah said.

In the first news of the downing of the helicopter, the American military said: “During an early morning raid Aug 10, a US helicopter executed a forced landing in Yusifiyah, 10 miles south of Baghdad, while supporting a planned mission.—AFP