The Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday began in Iraq Tuesday with a bomb ripping through a crowd of worshippers as they left a mosque, killing 12 people.

The Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday began in Iraq Tuesday with a bomb ripping through a crowd of worshippers as they left a mosque, killing 15 people.

Three children, a policeman and an army officer were among the dead from the blast in the northern city of Kirkuk, which also wounded 26 people, police and a doctor said.

Almost nothing is safe in Iraq from attack by militants, and violence has reached a level not seen since 2008, when the country was just emerging from a brutal sectarian conflict.

The latest unrest takes the number of people killed so far this month to more than 310, and to over 5,000 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.