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Irbil's suicide attack was meant to "destroy the
calm prevailing in Kurdistan," says an Iraqi
official.
Fay'q Tawfiq, a local interior ministry spokesman,
called on people in the region to step up their
vigilance.
"We all need to be alert and vigilant, because this
is not the first and will not be the last attack on
us," he said.
Mr Tawfiq described the attacker as a "foreign
terrorist with a non-Kurdish appearance".
Posing as a volunteer, he approached a crowd of
people queuing at a local police recruitment centre,
and blew himself up.
Up to 50 people were killed and dozens were injured
in the blast - the bloodiest single attack in the
region since the US-led invasion.
Among the injured was a 10-year-old child, said a
doctor at al-Jumhuri hospital, one of three medical
centres treating victims of the bombing.
Shrapnel wounds
"A very large number of the patients are suffering
from burns and shrapnel wounds," he told news agency
Reuters.
"Passers-by were also wounded. We are treating a
10-year-old child."
Television images of the blast scene showed pools of
blood mixed with sewage water spilling onto the
street.
Police held back on-lookers while ambulances and
volunteer taxi drivers ferried the casualties away.
Survivor Hawra Mohammed, 37, said he had just
dropped off his brother Ahmed, 32, at the centre
when the explosion occurred.
When Mr Mohammed ran back to find his brother, he
found him lying in the street, bleeding and
unconscious.
"I lifted my brother onto my shoulders and took him
to a nearby hospital," he told news agency AP. "The
blood on my shirt is my brother's."
'No justification'
There was anger and disbelief among Kurds at the
scene - some of whom had helped emergency services
remove bodies after being alerted by the sound of
explosion.
"Those killers, criminals and blood-suckers want to
export their campaign of terror to peaceful
Kurdistan," student Karawane Ahmed told news agency
AFP.
"Nothing can explain such carnage other than wanting
to turn the whole country into a battlefield," he
said.
Nearby, resident Haji Omar said: "What justification
is there for killing innocent people whose only
crime is to want to serve their country?"
www.bbc.co.uk
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