A truck bomb exploded near the offices of a major Kurdish party in the northwestern Iraqi town of Sinjar today, killing at least 15 people and wounding 30, the local mayor said.
Mr Dakheel Kassim Hassoun said the blast targeted the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Sinjar, close to the Syrian border in northern Iraq.
The insurgent group led by al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said in an Internet statement that it had carried out the attack.
"A lion from the martyrs' battalion attacked one of the apostate strongholds on Wednesday in a truck laden with explosives in Sinjar... which is controlled by the apostate Kurdistan Democratic Party, near the mayor's office," the Al Qaeda Organisation of Holy War in Iraq said.
"This is the fate of every agent of the Jews and crusaders," said the statement posted on an Islamist Web site.