At least two people are killed and a dozen wounded when a car bomb explodes in the ethnically mixed Iraqi city of Kirkuk Wednesday.

No one is immediately taking responsibility for the attack.

The UN says nearly 900 civilians were killed across Iraq last month -- putting the death toll so far this year well above the total in 2013.

More than two years of civil war in neighboring Syria has aggravated sectarian divisions and strained Iraq's fragile coalition of Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni factions.