At least seven people were killed and more than two dozen wounded on Saturday when a car bomb exploded near an auto dealership in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, Iraqi police said. However, a US military spokesman said in a statement that 10 people were killed and another 20 wounded in the bombing, which he said took place near a car market and targeted civilians. The town is halfway between the Syrian border and the city of Mosul, which the US military considers the last remaining urban bastion of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Iraq has seen dramatic improvements in security over the past year as US and Iraqi forces have teamed up with local tribes to drive out insurgents and militias, but attacks are still common in some parts of the country.
In Baghdad, 10 people were wounded, including seven civilians, in two separate bomb attacks, police said. One targeted a police patrol and another set alight a mostly empty oil tanker.
In another roadside bomb attack outside the town of Fallujah -- once the epicentre of the Sunni insurgency -- six policemen, including one officer, were wounded, police Captain Jumaa Hussein Hamadi.