Three car bombings have killed 16 people in northern Iraq, including an Iraqi child, a municipal council leader and a bodyguard of Iraq's Kurdish deputy prime minister, police said.

At least 10 people were killed and 40 wounded in a massive explosion targeting a restaurant at 8am (0400GMT) on Thursday in Tuz Khurmatu, 88km south of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, said police Lieutenant Sabah Hidayat.

The bombing targeted the town's Baghdad Restaurant, where bodyguards of Iraq's Kurdish deputy prime minister, Rowsch Nouri Shaways, were eating, said police Brigadier Sarhad Qadre.

"I was sitting inside my restaurant when about six cars parked nearby and their passengers came inside and ordered food," said restaurant owner Ahmed al-Dawoudi.

"Seconds later, I heard a big explosion and the restaurant was turned into twisted wreckage and rubble. Blood and pieces of flesh were everywhere."

Shaways was not at the restaurant at the time of the blast, which left one his guards dead and six wounded.

Kurds, who want oil-rich Kirkuk to be part of their autonomous Kurdistan region, have been regularly targeted in attacks.

Cars on fire

The blast set ablaze eight cars in the restaurant's car park, the focal point of a bloody, rubble-strewn scene that US and Iraqi police quickly cordoned off.

Shards of glass, shoes and splattered breakfast meals covered the restaurant's floor as emergency workers raced around overturned tables and wooden chairs in an effort to treat the casualties.

"The suicide bomber detonated his car outside Baghdad Restaurant where the bodyguards stopped for a while to eat breakfast while heading to (the northern city of) Sulaimaniyah from Baghdad," said Colonel Abbas Mohamed Amin, chief of Tuz Khurmatu police.

Amin said that the car used in the attack was a white Toyota sedan and that the bomber followed the guards from Baghdad.

Kirkuk attack

In Kirkuk, a car bomber targeting two US consulate vehicles killed two Iraqi bystanders, including a child, and wounded eight others on Thursday, Qadre said.

The attack came as US diplomatic vehicles entered the complex of the Northern Oil Company.

"A suicide car bomb exploded at the entrance to the complex shortly before 9am (0500 GMT) and soon after a convoy from the American consulate, which is housed inside, entered," said police officer Afran Hanna.

An American vehicle was slightly damaged in the attack, which destroyed four Iraqi civilian cars, he said.

Baquba bomb

Farther south in Baquba, about 60km northeast of Baghdad, another car bomb killed four people, including Hussein Alwan al-Tamimi, deputy head of Iraq's northeastern Diyala provincial council, police Colonel Mudhafar Mohammed said.

PHOTO CAPTION

Bodyguards of Iraq's Kurdish deputy prime minister, Rowsch Nouri Shaways carry their comrade's body in Tuz Khormato, some 88 Kilometers (55 miles) south of the northern oil city of Kirkuk, Thursday June 2, 2005. (AP)