UPDATE: Iraqi authorities say bombings and shootings across the country have killed at least 26 people, about half of them in northern regions whose territory is disputed between autonomous Iraqi Kurds and Baghdad's central government.
In Monday's deadliest attack, a car bomb killed seven people in a village near the northern city of Mosul in Iraq's Nineveh province. The village is inhabited by the Shabak ethnic minority.
Two more car bombs exploded in a Shi'ite district of the town of Tuz Khormato in Salah al-Din province, killing five people. Several bombs also went off around the town of Baquba in Diyala province, killing one person.
Nineveh, Salah al-Din and Diyala provinces all border Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, which wants to incorporate Kurdish-populated parts of those provinces into its territory over Baghdad's strong objections.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks, which marked the second consecutive day of violence in disputed regions claimed by Iraqi Kurdistan.
On Sunday, bombs targeting Iraqi Shi'ites killed at least six people in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. A car bomb also struck a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan office in the Diyala town of Jalawla, killing two recruits seeking to join a Kurdish peshmerga security force.
Monday's other attacks in Iraq killed at least 13 more people, including one person in a car bombing in downtown Baghdad.
Original: Multiple bomb blasts have hit northern Iraq, killing at least 10 people in contested areas where tensions have flared between the Kurdish minority and the central government.
Two of the bombs Monday exploded in a Shi'ite area of Tuz Khurmatu, in Kirkuk province. Another blast, a car bomb, struck a Shabak minority area near Mosul.
The attacks follow a string of bombings in Iraq Sunday that killed at least nine people in Kirkuk and Jalula.
Kirkuk is part of the ethnically mixed and oil-rich area that Kurds want to incorporate into their self-administered region, but is also claimed by Turkmen and the Arab-led central government. VoA.
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