Checkpoint blasts kill 15 in northern Iraq: official

KIRKUK: A roadside bomb followed by a suicide bomber detonating an explosives-rigged truck at a police checkpoint in northern Iraq killed 15 people on Monday, a local official said.

The official, Shallal Abdul Baban, told the blasts in Tuz Khurmatu also wounded 115 people and caused "great destruction".

The police checkpoint that was targeted was near an office of President Jalal Talabani´s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party.

The blasts came a day after a car bomb followed by a suicide bombing near a PUK office and a Kurdish intelligence building in Jalawla, another northern town, killed 18 people.

Powerful extremists group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed the Jalawla attack in a statement posted on Twitter, and said it was carried out by two suicide bombers, one Egyptian and an Iraqi Kurd.