A suicide bomber drove a truck packed with explosives into a Kurdish village in north Iraq before dawn today, killing at least 20 villagers and wounding 27, Iraqi police said.
The attack in the village of Wardek, 390 km north of Baghdad, seemed calculated to fan ethnic tensions between Kurds and Arabs, whose politicians are embroiled in a bitter dispute over claims to territory and oil.
Women and children were among the dead and many houses were destroyed, police said.
Another truck bomber tried to set off a second blast in the village but local Kurdish Peshmerga forces opened fire and killed him before he reached its outskirts, Iraqi police said.
Wardek is 30 km east of the volatile northern city of Mosul, where al-Qaeda and other Sunni insurgents are making a last stand after being driven out of their former strongholds in Baghdad and western Iraq.
US officials say insurgents are increasingly seeking ways to attack Kurds in ethnically mixed parts of northern Iraq in a bid to foment ethnic violence between them and Arabs at a time of rising tensions over land disputes.
Earlier, a car bomb killed eight members of a single Arab family and levelled at least one house in Kirkuk, the city at the heart of the row between Arabs and minority Kurds. Police said a displaced family from Diyala province further south had been taking refuge in the house when it was hit.
The explosion occurred near the home of an Arab leader of a pro-government local militias known as 'Awakening' councils, in the east of the city. The militias, including many former insurgents who switched sides, are a favourite al-Qaeda target.
Later today, two roadside bombs exploded in quick succession in a popular market south of Baghdad, killing at least four people and wounding 29. Police said the death toll from the attack in Mahmudiya, about 30 km south of Baghdad, was expected to rise.