At least 17 people were killed and 50 others injured Friday in an explosion at a Sunni mosque in Iraq.

According to police sources, a jerry can filled with a highly explosive material was detonated near the mosque in a highly fortified area in the city of Tikrit as worshippers were leaving after Friday prayers. Two provincial council members and a police colonel were among the wounded.

There were conflicting accounts of whether the blast was the work of a suicide bomber and whether the bomb went off inside or just outside the mosque. The mosque is located inside a compound of palaces built during Saddam Hussein's era.

The attack in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, comes two months after an al-Qaida raid on the city's provincial council headquarters that left 58 people dead.

Al-Qaida's offshoot in Iraq has vowed revenge attacks after the death of leader Osama bin Laden.in a U.S. raid in Pakistan.

Isra al Rubeii reported from Baghdad, Iraq, for this story, which contains material from The Associated Press.