Two dozen people have died in a surge of violence in northern Iraq, including 10 at a football game hit by a suicide car bombing, police said, while the country’s spiralling sectarian and political bloodshed killed at least 19 others elsewhere.

At least 13 people were killed as Iraqi security forces fought street gunbattles with suspected insurgents in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul after a suicide car bomber blew up a police patrol today, officials said.