At Least 17 Killed In Blast At Mosque In Iraq's Tikrit

The scene of an October 2010 bomb attack in Tikrit

Security officials say at least 17 people have been killed and scores injured in an explosion in northern Iraq.

The explosive device went off after Friday prayers at a Sunni mosque in the city of Tikrit, 130 kilometers north of Baghdad.

There are conflicting accounts of whether the blast was the work of a suicide bomber and whether the bomb went off inside or just outside the mosque.

The mosque is located inside a compound of palaces built during Saddam Hussein's era.

Tikrit was the hometown of the late Iraqi dictator.

Police have cordoned off the area.

compiled from agency reports