ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)<br/> <br />A suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives killed at least 12 people who had gathered to buy and sell cars in Iraq on Thursday, local officials said.<br/> <br />Soldiers and police were at the scene on Friday. Cranes and tractors started to clear the debris, rubble and burnt out vehicles left by the blast.<br/> <br />No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place near the car markets in the town of Balad Ruz, in northeastern Iraq, injuring another 25 people.<br/> <br />However, suicide bombings are the hallmark of al Qaeda, whose Iraq affiliate has re-emerged, invigorated by the civil war in Syria and growing resentment among the country's Sunni Muslim minority towards the Shi'ite-led government.<br/> <br />Two years after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, violence is at its highest levels since the sectarian bloodshed of 2006-7, when tens of thousands of people were killed.
