Ten killed in attack on Iraqi provincial council

The assailants used car bombs, explosive belts and hand grenades as they stormed into the building and were holding people hostage, an official who declined to be named said.

Another provincial official said the gunmen who wore security forces' uniforms threw hand grenades and opened fire at a checkpoint of the Salahuddin provincial council building before they managed to storm in. Twelve people were killed, the official said.

"When security forces tried to intervene when they reached the entrance, a parked car bomb exploded. It was a powerful explosion and as a result, some of the security forces were killed," said the official.

"Two suicide bombers detonated themselves inside the provincial building, while other gunmen managed to seize members of the provincial council as hostages."

Special police forces have entered the building and engaged with the gunmen, who were holding hostages on the second floor of the building, the second official said.

Iraqi security forces and U.S. soldiers had surrounded the building in the city, 150 km (95 miles) north of Baghdad.

Insurgents are still capable of carrying out lethal attacks eight years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam although overall violence in Iraq has fallen sharply since the peak in 2006-7 of sectarian slaughter that was triggered after the invasion.

Bombings and attacks remain a daily occurrence.

Salahuddin province, home to Saddam's family, continues to suffer frequent attacks by suspected Sunni Islamist insurgents opposed to the Shi'ite-led authorities in Baghdad. Tikrit is primarily Sunni.

(Reporting by Aseel Kami and Ahmed Rasheed; writing by Rania El Gamal; editing by Serena Chaudhry and Matthew Jones)