|
Suicide truck bomb kills 23 in Kirkuk
city 17.9.2006
Update 4, Sept 17
|
|
|
|
Kirkuk,
Kurdistan-Iraq, September 17 ,-- Insurgents killed
at least 23 people with a wave of vehicle bombs
across Iraq's ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk on
Sunday, one day after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
urged Iraqis to embrace reconciliation.
At least 73 other people were wounded in the
coordinated blasts caused by a huge suicide truck
bomb and four car bombs which rocked oil-rich Kirkuk,
a flashpoint city north of Baghdad disputed by Sunni
Arabs, ethnic Kurds and Turkmen.
In the deadliest explosion, a suicide attacker
driving a truck rigged with explosives blew himself
up outside a police centre and the offices of two
top Kurdish parties, killing 17 people, mostly
civilians, police said. The toll included 10 women
and two children visiting relatives held by police.
Within an hour, a car bomb targeting a U.S. military
patrol killed three civilians and wounded six other
people. Minutes later, another suicide car bomber
rammed into an Iraqi army checkpoint, wounding two
soldiers. Two other car bombs struck the city.
The closed-off area where the truck bomb exploded
also houses the headquarters of Iraq's President
Jalal Talabani and Kurdish regional president
Massoud Barzani.
Firefighters battled flames at collapsed buildings
and charred corpses lay in streets littered with
twisted car parts.
U.S. officials fear bloodshed may worsen with the
holy month of Ramadan next week and have said car
bombs could be a preferred tactic by al Qaeda and
other Sunni insurgent groups.
Kirkuk Police chief Major General Sherko Shakir said
the simultaneous explosions, among the worst
violence in volatile Kirkuk in months, were intended
to "destabilise the city".
Settling Kirkuk's status between ethnic groups is
one of Iraq's most sensitive issues, and failure to
contain violence there could spark all-out war
across Iraq, already gripped by sectarian violence
between Muslim Shi'ites and Sunnis.
Kirkuk is located just outside the Kurdistan
autonomous region, it's is about 20 km south of
Kurdistan autonomous region's border .
Suicide attacks is the method used by Islamic
terrorists groups.
There has been a sharp rise in violence in Kirkuk
city in recent months.
Kirkuk is disputed by Sunni Arabs and Kurds, and
correspondents say its final status is a sensitive
issue in Iraq.
AP | Reuters | Agencies
The former Iraqi president forced about 250,000
Kurdish residents to give up their homes to Arabs in
the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city and the region's
oil industry.
Kirkuk city is not under the full control of
Kurdistan Regional Government administration. A
referendum in 2007 will decide whether the oil-rich
Kurdish province should be annexed to the safe
semiautonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 