BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded at a car showroom in the Iraqi town of Muqdadiya on Thursday, killing at least 13 people and wounding 33 others, security sources said.
The blast set fire to about 30 cars at the busy showroom in the town in volatile Diyala province about 80 km northeast of Baghdad, the sources said.
A police officer at the scene said the car had been left at the centre by a man who said he would return soon, and exploded about 30 minutes after he left.
"The police and army are in the area," the officer said. "Since we have received information that there is another attack expected by a suicide bomber in a car, we have imposed a ban on cars."
All entrances to the town had been closed, the officer said.
Violence in Iraq has dropped sharply in recent years following the peak of sectarian warfare in 2006-07, but security forces are still battling a Sunni Islamist insurgency.
Ethnically and religiously mixed Diyala province saw some of the worst fighting in the war.
A suicide bomber killed 48 people and wounded 80 others in an attack targeting Shi'ite pilgrims near the city of Samarra on Saturday.
It followed a series of recent attacks by insurgents as U.S. troops prepare to fully withdraw by the end of the year, eight years after the U.S.-led invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein.
(Reporting by Reuters Television; writing by Serena Chaudhry)
