Kirkuk, 15 April (AKI) - At least 10 people died on Wednesday in a car bomb attack in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk and 22 were injured, an unnamed medical source said, cited by the Voices of Iraq news agency.

“The toll from the car bomb explosion that occurred in al-Wasiti neighbourhood, near al-Asdiqaa gas station, southwestern Kirkuk, has reached 10 dead and 22 wounded persons,” the source said.

The source noted added that the death toll was likely to rise further as some of the wounded are in a critical condition. Many of the injured were said to be civilians.

The attack appeared to have targeted a police convoy assigned to protect an oil installation, officials said. Some reports said all those killed were policemen.

Kirkuk is the centre of northern Iraq's oil industry. A volatile mix of Kurds, Turkmen, Christians and Arabs lives there.

Cities in northern Iraq have suffered a recent spate of bombings as Al-Qaeda and other militant groups fight to retain their stronghold in the region.

A suicide truck bomber last Friday killed five US troops and three members of Iraq's security forces at a police compound in Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, which is also located in the north of the country.

It was the deadliest attack on American troops in Iraq for more than a year.

The top US commander in the area, Gary Volesky, said on Tuesday his soldiers would stay on in Mosul and other nearby cities where Al-Qaeda remained a threat if the Iraqi government asked them to.

The US currently has more than 140,000 troops in Iraq, and combat troops are due to pull out of Iraq's cities by the end of June.