At least 20 people killed and 70 wounded when a suspected suicide car bomb attack struck the building of a Kurdish regional ministry in the northern city of Arbil on Wednesday, provincial police said.

"A booby-trapped car, apparently driven by a suicide bomber, hit the Kurdish regional Interior Ministry in the city of Arbil at about 8:00 AM (04:00 GMT)," a source from the city police told Xinhua by telephone.

The powerful blast killed and wounded some 30 people, most of them are policemen, damaging several nearby cars and buildings, said the source who spoke anonymously.

"It apparently a suicide attack, but we can't confirm that at this stage as the security forces are still investigating the incident," the source added.

Arbil, 350 km north of Baghdad, is the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan autonomous region, which has been relatively calm, despite the violence in other parts of the war-torn country.

(Xinhua News Agency May 9, 2007)