The self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq claimed in a statement posted on a website used by Islamist militant groups that one of its fighters rammed an explosives-laden lorry at the compound on Sunday.

Fifty people were killed, many of them Kurdish officials, and 115 others were wounded in the bombing which police said hit a compound housing Makhmur's local administration and the offices of two Kurdish political parties.

Kurdish parties and security forces have become a target of choice for Sunni Arab extremists, who accuse the minority population of collaborating with the US forces fighting the country's insurgency.