Kirkuk: Gunmen wearing suicide vests attacked government targets in the Kurdish-controlled city of Kirkuk and killed 16 at an Iranian-run construction site further north on Friday as troops advanced on the Daesh bastion Mosul.
Daesh claimed responsibility.
"The forces of IS attacked the city of Kirkuk from all directions," the Daesh-linked Amaq news agency said, using another name for the group.
In one attack, three bombers infiltrated a power plant being built by an Iranian company near Dibis, a town about 40 km northwest of Kirkuk, the mayor said.
"Three suicide bombers attacked the power plant at around 6.00 am, killing 12 Iraqi administrators and engineers and four Iranian technicians," Dibis mayor Abdullah Nureddin al-Salehi told AFP.
A police lieutenant colonel confirmed the casualty toll.
The mayor said the attack led to clashes with security forces, who managed to kill one of the bombers before he detonated his vest. The other two blew themselves up once they were surrounded, he said.
Hours earlier, a commando of suicide bombers armed with rifles attacked multiple locations in Kirkuk.
A Kurdish intelligence officer said four suicide bombers attacked the main police headquarters in the city at around 3.00 am.
"The security forces managed to shoot one of them dead, the other three blew themselves up," he said.
Several other targets in the south of the city were attacked by what the officer said were members of Daesh, sparking clashes with security forces that were still ongoing five hours later.
A Kirkuk official told AFP that a total curfew was slapped on the city.
