MORE than 20 people were killed today in a double bombing of Kurdish political party offices in Iraq.

A suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden vehicle into a checkpoint leading up to the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the nearby Kurdistan Communist Party, said Shalal Abdoul, the mayor of the northern town of Tuz Khormato.

Another bomb exploded — presumably by detonated by remote control — as people rushed to the scene of the first blast.

The attack killed at least 22 people, wounded around 150 and destroyed several nearby houses and cars.

Nobody had claimed responsibility for the blasts when the Star went to press but al-Qaida splinter group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant said it was behind the Sunday double-bombing of Kurdish offices in Jalula, north-west of Baghdad.

The Sunni group said that attack, which killed 19 people, was in response to the arrest of Mulsim women by authorities in the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani leads the Patriotic Union, one of the main parties governing the Kurdish region. It provides vital support to the Shi’ite-led government.

The Kurdistan Communist Party was formed in 1993 when members of the Communist Party of Iraq in Kurdish areas formed a sperate organisation.

The twin bombing was the bloodiest attack on a day of violence across Iraq that left at least 30 dead.