Baghdad - A man killed himself and a guard outside the local offices of an Iraqi political party in the central Iraqi city of Tikrit on Saturday, witnesses told the German Pres Agency dpa.

At least seven other people were injured in the attack on the Iraqi National Union Group's headquarters, witnesses said, adding that the blast had badly damaged the building's facade.

The party, which describes itself as secular, is run by Nehru Mohammed Abdel-Karim, whose father, Mohammed Abdel-Karim, was known as a confidant of Ezzat Ibrahim, former deputy head of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council during the Saddam regime.

Tikrit, some 140 kilometres north of Baghdad, forms the northernmost point of the so-called "Sunni triangle" in central Iraq. Saddam Hussein hailed from nearby Awja, and sheltered in the region after the US-led invasion in 2003. (dpa)