Iraq attacks kill 20

BAGHDAD: A wave of attacks across Iraq, including twin car bombs in an ethnically mixed tinderbox city, killed 20 people Wednesday as a year-long surge of violence showed no signs of let-up.

Nearly 50 people were also wounded in the violence, which struck in and around Baghdad, as well as in Salaheddin and Kirkuk provinces to its north, all areas afflicted by near-daily bloodshed.

In the deadliest attack, two vehicles rigged with explosives went off in the centre of Kirkuk, killing eight people and leaving nine wounded, said provincial health chief Sabah Mohammed.

Kirkuk, an oil-rich ethnically diverse city, lies at the centre of a swathe of territory that Iraqi Kurdistan wants to incorporate into its three-province autonomous region over the objections of the central government in Baghdad.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Elsewhere in north Iraq, two people were killed when a suicide attacker set off a truck bomb in Suleiman Bek, while a corpse booby-trapped with explosives killed a policeman in nearby Tuz Khurmatu.

In the adjoining province of Salaheddin, two separate bombings left a policeman and a soldier dead.

In the capital, meanwhile, a car bomb killed four people in a shopping area of Saba Abkar, while a policeman was shot dead in district in the south.

On Baghdad´s northern outskirts, two policemen were killed by a roadside bomb. (AFP)