'Dozens of casualties' in Iraq explosion

A bomb exploded in Iraq outside the Interior Ministry in the Kurdish city of Irbil today, causing dozens of casualties, security officials said.

Police and hospital officials did not have an immediate breakdown of those killed and injured in the blast.

Irbil, 217 miles north of Baghdad, is the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, which has been relatively calm, despite the violence in much of the rest of Iraq.

The Interior Ministry, the apparent target of the blast, is next to the parliament for the Kurdish Autonomous region of northern Iraq.