One killed, dozens injured in Iraq car bombings

At least one person was killed and 51 injured on Wednesday in two car bombings in northern Iraq, security officials said.

The first attack targeted a Kurdish security checkpoint in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, leaving one dead and 13 wounded.

At least 38 were injured when a car bomb went off near an office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, in Kirkuk, about 250 km north of Baghdad.

No one had claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Iraq has witnessed near-daily attacks since US troops withdrew in December 2011.

A rise in attacks in recent months has fanned fears of a return to the kind of sectarian violence that drove Iraq to the brink of civil war in 2006 and 2007.