Baghdad, Jan 12 (IANS): Eight militiamen and soldiers were killed and 16 others were wounded Monday when a suicide car bomber struck a building housing Shia militiamen in the country's northern central province of Salahudin, a provincial security source said.

The attack occurred in the town of Abbasiyah, some 140 km north of Iraq's capital Baghdad, when a suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden car into the building and blew it up, destroying a large part of the building, the source told Xinhua news agency on condition of anonymity.

The toll could rise as ambulances and military vehicles continue to evacuate the casualties, the source said.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group was allegedly responsible for such suicide attacks in the country in most cases.

Large parts of Salahudin province have been under IS control since June 11, a day after bloody clashes broke out between Iraqi security forces and the group which took control of the country's northern city of Mosul and later seized swathes of territories in Nineveh and other predominantly Sunni provinces.