One dead and at least 15 others wounded when two car bombs explode in the centre of Iraq's ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk.
The first car bomb was detonated just few metres away from Kirkuk's local government building in the centre of the city and when people rushed to the scene a second car bomb exploded, police said. A passing vehicle with Kirkuk's traffic police chief was hit by the blast, but the police official escaped unhurt.
The oil-rich city 155 miles north of Baghdad, which is contested by Arabs, kurds and other ethnic minorities, is a frequent scene of car bomb attacks. A car bomb attack last week south of the city killed three people including two policemen and wounded eight others.
According to government figures released on Monday, the death toll from militant attacks across Iraq doubled in September to 365, the highest toll for more than two years, with most of them killed in bomb attacks. Insurgents have launched one major assault a month since U.S. troops withdrew in December.
The bloodiest day of the last month was September 9, when more than 100 people were killed in bomb and gun attacks across Iraq. The coordinated assaults against mostly Shi'ite Muslim targets were claimed by the Iraqi affiliate of the Sunni Muslim al Qaeda.
Iraq has been racked by sectarian slaughter since the overthrow of former President Saddam Hussein in 2003. Although it is now far off its peak of 2006-2007, the violence has been increasing since the last American troops left as political tensions among Iraq's main Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish factions have increased.