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Suicide truck bomb kills 10 in Iraq's
Kirkuk city 17.1.2007 |
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KIRKUK, Iraq,
January 17, -- A suicide bomber driving a truck
packed with explosives killed 10 people and wounded
42 at a police station in central Kirkuk on
Wednesday, police and a hospital source said.
A police source said many buildings in the area
suffered severe damage from the blast, but declined
to confirm reports of casualties.
One resident of the northern Iraqi city told Reuters
he saw many casualties lying in the street and
several buildings had collapsed.
Sitting atop one of the world's richest oil fields,
Kirkuk is just outside the borders of the largely
autonomous Kurdistan region and its population is a
volatile mix of Kurds, Turkmen and Sunni and Shi'ite
Arabs.
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein 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.
Iraqi security forces are frequently targeted by
bombers seeking to undermine the U.S.-backed Iraqi
government. Police in many areas are
also infiltrated by militias, making them a target
for rival armed groups.
Reuters
Kirkuk city is a Kurdistani city and it lies just south border of the Kurdistan
autonomous region and it is not under the full
control of Kurdistan Regional Government
administration.
A referendum is to be held in late 2007 to decide
whether the oil-rich Kurdish province should be
annexed to the safe semiautonomous Kurdistan region
in Iraq's north.
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