At least 45 people were killed and 93 wounded in a suicide bomb attack on a restaurant near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Thursday, the city’s deputy police chief Torhane Yussef said.
Women and children were among the victims of the attack on the "Abdullah" restaurant, an interior ministry official in Baghdad said.
The blast happened in early afternoon on the final day of the Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) holiday at a roadside restaurant 15 kilometres (nine miles) north of Kirkuk and 255 kilometres (160 miles) from Baghdad, police officer Salam Zengana told a foreign news agenc.
A defence ministry source and waiter Abbas Fadhel said a suicide bomber activated a booby-trapped belt in the middle of the restaurant, where families were dining.
However, the interior ministry official said the attack was by an explosives-laden car outside the restaurant.
The wounded were taken to Kirkuk’s main hospital.
"More and more victims are arriving," Doctor Mohammed Abdallah said.
At the restaurant, victims were lying on the ground with blood on their faces, an AFP journalist said.
Bomb attacks have continued regularly in Kirkuk and surrounding areas, although the number of violent incidents in Iraq as a whole has dropped sharply this year.