At least eight people have been killed after a car laden with explosives blew up in a market in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Another people were also injured in the bombing on Saturday in an eastern area of the northern city, predominantly inhabited by the Shia Muslim minority Shabak ethnic group.

There are frequent attacks in Mosul and the surrounding Nineveh province, which remains a stronghold of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Two suicide bombings in Tal Afar, not far from Mosul, killed 34 people and wounded around 60 on Thursday.

A roadside bomb placed near a police checkpoint in the west of Mosul killed at least one officer the following day.

Local officials have said the recent attacks have been aimed at stoking tensions in the region, which has a mixed population of Arabs, Kurds and ethnic Turkmen.

The latest bombing came less than two weeks after US combat troops withdrew from the centres of all cities and major towns across the country.