Baghdad suicide attack kills at least 10

A suicide driver detonated a car packed with explosives at a security check-point south of Baghdad on Monday, killing ten people and wounding 25, police and medical sources said.

The blast happened as a convoy of Shia paramilitary fighters drove past the check-point in Yusufiya, 15km south of the Iraqi capital, the sources said.

It caused casualties among police and army personnel manning the position, as well as Shia fighters and civilians, they said.

The bombing comes as Iraqi forces launched earlier today an offensive on Mosul, the last city that remains under control of Islamic State in Iraq.

The group intensified bomb attacks in government-held areas this year as it loses territory to US-backed Iraqi government forces and Shia militias.

The group claimed a truck bombing in July that killed at least 324 people in the Karrada shopping area of Baghdad - the deadliest single attack in Iraq since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.