Bomb blast kills 18 in Kirkuk

A bomb exploded today outside a bank in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, killing 18 people including pensioners and children selling groceries, police said.

Captain Salam Zangana, an official at a hospital where the victims were being brought, said another 53 people were wounded.

The bomb was planted near a queue of people waiting outside the Rafidiyan Bank in downtown Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, said police Col Shiraz Mohammed.

The 9am (6am Irish time) blast was caused by a roadside bomb planted outside the bank and two cars parked nearby were set on fire, Mohammed said.

Children and other vendors selling products from sugar to kitchen utensils on a bridge and the road underneath were among the 18 people killed, Zangana said.

The pavement outside the bank was strewn with rubble and glass from the building, while several bodies were seen lying underneath wreckage. At least two cars parked nearby were set on flames.

Kirkuk is an ethnically mixed city where insurgents have routinely launched deadly attacks apparently seeking to foment ethnic tension.