Wave of deadly blasts hits Iraq

At least 20 people were killed and another 60 injured in 10 blasts across Iraq, including a car bomb outside a French consular building in the usually stable city of Nassiriya, police sources said.

The most serious attack happened early on Sunday in Dujail, 50km north of Baghdad, when gunmen and a suicide bomber driving a car attacked a military base, killing 11 soldiers and injuring seven.

One car bomb exploded outside the French consular building in Nassiriya, 300km south of Baghdad, wounding two people, police said.

Another car bomb also detonated in the city, killing two and wounding three.

An Iraqi police general said a bombing near the restive northern city of Kirkuk killed seven police recruits and wounded 17 as they were lining up to apply for jobs.

Kirkuk police commander General Sarhad Qadir said the recruits had gathered in a parking lot on Sunday morning outside a military base about 10km outside the city.

He said the recruits were applying for jobs as police with the state-run Northern Oil Co.

Kirkuk has been an Iraq flashpoint for years. Iraqi Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen all claim to a stake to its oil-rich land.

More people were killed in several other blasts across the country in the towns of Samarra, Basra and Tuz Khurmato.

Although violence has decreased since its peak in 2006 and 2007, attacks have escalated again after the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq in December 2011 and amid increasing political and sectarian tensions.

The government, troubled by infighting among Sunni, Shia and Kurdish political factions, is still struggling to battle several armed groups, including an al-Qaeda affiliate, nine months after the last US troops left.

Iraq's local al-Qaeda wing, Islamic State of Iraq, has claimed responsibility for other major attacks on security forces and Shia neighbourhoods.

But former members of Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baathist party and other Sunni Islamist groups are also fighting the government.

Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for Sunday's attacks.

Tension in Iraq's delicate power-sharing government, and a resurgence of the al-Qaeda group, have raised fears of a return to widespread violence, especially as Iraq struggles to contain spillover from the growing conflict in neighbouring Syria.