As many as 21 people have been killed following the bombing of an Iraqi army recruitment centre in west Baghdad.

According to Iraqi police sources on Sunday, a bomber with explosives strapped to his body blew himself up at the Muthana airport recruitment centre which has already been targeted on previous occasions.

One police source said 21 were killed and 31 wounded, though a doctor at a nearby hospital said it was treating 34 wounded and had received many dead.

Meanwhile, a car bomber in the northern city of Kirkuk has killed three Iraqi officials and wounded 10 more at a local authority building.

Police spokesman Colonet Yadigar Muhammad said he did not know why the municipality building had been targeted.

The municipality is controlled by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two Kurdish factions in northern Iraq.

Other incidents:

Two employees of Iraqna mobile phone company were killed on Sunday morning while on their way to work, Iraqi police sources said.

A blast on Sittin street in Dora area south of Baghdad targeted at a US military patrol destroyed a Hummer vehicle and injured at least four US soldiers, Iraqi police and eyewitnesses said.

Also in Baghdad, some explosions were heard in Salman Faiq street in the centre of the city. They were targeted at the police directorate there. However, there are no reports of casualties so far.

Fierce clashes have also erupted between fighters and US patrols near the city hall in Sidiya area south of Baghdad. The city hall building had previously been destroyed by the fighters. Again, no casualties have been reported.

PHOTO CAPTION

Iraqi morgue workers cover the bodies of the dead as a family carries another victim on a coffin after a suicide bombing outside an Iraqi army-recruiting center in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, July 10, 2005. (AP)