One attack hit a religious shrine owned by the family of Iraq's Kurdish President Jalal Talabani, and another the home of a Kurdish police chief, police Brigadier General Burhan Tayib told AFP in the city.

Earlier, a third suicide car bomber blew himself up near the office of Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Kirkuk, killing one guard and wounding 16 party members, police said.

A total of 10 people were killed in the later attacks, including police Colonel Ahmed Abdallah's son, Tayib said. Three houses and the studio of a local television station were also damaged in the blast.

Both the later attacks took place in the Iskan district, a stronghold of Talabani's tribe and of his party, in Kirkuk, an oil-rich city which is claimed by both Arabs and Iraq's Kurdish minority.

A spokesman for the PUK in the city, Jalal Joher, blamed the blasts on Sunni Arab insurgents loyal to the ousted regime of former leader Saddam Hussein or the Islamist group Ansar al-Sunna.

During the Saddam era Kurds were pushed out of Kirkuk and surrounding areas as the Sunni Arab strongman sought to "Arabise" the oil-rich region. Since his overthrow in 2003 parties like the PUK have grown in strength.