BAGHDAD, Iraq The death toll from a huge blast in northern Iraq rose to 35, local security officials said Wednesday.The car bombing took place in a busy commercial district in a predominantly Kurdish area of Kirkuk early Tuesday evening when the neighborhood was busy, security sources said.
About 17 shops and houses were destroyed and 95 people were wounded, a police official in the Iraqi city added.
It happened on the day U.S. troops completed their pullback from cities and towns, amid a spike in violence in the country.
Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded in a series of dramatic bombings in the past 10 days.
But the top U.S. general in the country insisted Tuesday that much of the country was safe. "There is not widespread violence in Iraq," Gen. Ray Odierno told reporters in a video conference from Baghdad.
"There's still gonna be bumps in the road. There's still gonna be violence here," he added.
A truck bombing south of Kirkuk killed 80 people and wounded more than 200 on June 20.
Kirkuk is about 378 kilometers (235 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad.
The United States has pulled about 30,000 troops out of Iraq since September, leaving about 131,000 troops there now.Most are to be out of the country by the end of August 2010, under U.S. President Barack Obama's withdrawal plan. A residual force will remain, and all U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, under the Iraq-U.S. security agreement.CNN's Jomana Karadsheh in Baghdad contributed to this report.
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