A member of the Iraqi forces, consisting of the Iraqi federal police and the elite Rapid Response Division, fires a rocket-propelled grenade towards Islamic State (IS) group jihadists as they advance in the Old City in western Mosul on March 19, 2017, during the offensive to retake the city from IS group fighters. PHOTO: AFP
The blast happened at around 7:00pm in the busy business district of Hay al-Amel in the west of the city, he said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion, which bore all the hallmarks of a suicide attack by the Islamic State group.
Fighting Daesh: a test for US-Iraq relations?
The radical extremist group is under assault in both Iraq - in the country's second city Mosul which IS seized in June 2014 - and in neighbouring Syria.
In that year, the militants took vast swathes of Iraqi territory north and west of the capital.
Iraqi government forces backed by the US-led international coalition have since retaken many cities, including Tikrit.
But as IS has lost ground in Iraq, it has also retained the ability to stage regular attacks there.
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