At least 17 people are reported to have been killed and 26 others wounded after two suicide bombers hit a coffee shop near the northern city of Mosul.

Police said that the two men entered a crowded cafe in Sinjar, whose inhabitants are from the minority Yazidi sect, and detonated explosive vests.

Thursday's bombing is the deadliest since Monday, when 51 people were killed across Iraq, including 28 in the village of Khaznah outside of Mosul.

Sinjar, northwest of Mosul, is a city dominated by members of the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi religious group that is concentrated near the Syrian border.

Bombings and shootings are reported almost daily in and around Mosul, the capital of the northern province of Nineveh, where armed groups have exploited disputes between Arabs and Kurds even though their influence has waned elsewhere in Iraq.