7 killed, 118 wounded in car bombings in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- At least seven people were killed and 118 wounded in two car bomb explosions in northern Iraq on Wednesday, the police said.

A car bomb went off at a popular marketplace in Atlas Street in the center part of the city of Kirkuk, some 250 km north of Baghdad, killing five civilians and wounding 90 others, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

In a separate incident, at least two people were killed and 28 wounded in another car bomb explosion near the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a Kurdish party headed by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, in the city of Tuz-Khurmato, some 200 km north of Baghdad, a local police source anonymously told Xinhua.

The ethnically mixed cities of Kirkuk and Tuz-Khurmato are part of disputed areas claimed both by the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan and the central government in Baghdad.

High-profile bomb attacks are still common in Iraqi cities despite the dramatic decrease in violence since its peak in 2006 and 2007, when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.

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