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Truck bomb shatters Iraqi Kurdistan dreams of
security
10.5.2007 |
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May 10, 2007
Erbil, Kurdistan region (Iraq), -- A
powerful bomb exploded
Wednesday in Iraq's normally peaceful Kurdistan
capital of Erbil, killing at least 14 in a rare
attack in a region usually sheltered from the
country's turmoil.
The attack came as US Vice President Dick Cheney
made an unannounced visit to Baghdad to urge Iraqi
leaders to speed a process of national
reconciliation.
The Erbil blast tore a two meter (yard) deep crater
in front of the autonomous northern region's
interior ministry, scattering the bodies of dead and
injured outside the heavily guarded building.
Kurdistan's health minister, Zirian Abdelrahman,
said 19 were people killed, although his colleague
at the interior ministry later gave a lower toll.
"It was a truck bomb carrying cleaning products that
targeted our ministry and killed 14 people and
wounded 87, including government employees,"
regional interior minister Karim Sinajri told
journalists.
The blast site was a scene of chaos as rescue
workers rushed to evacuate the wounded. Few panes of
glass were left intact in nearby buildings and
children's shoes lay scattered in the rubble.
Suspicion fell immediately on Ansar al-Sunna, an
extremist Islamist group that grew out of the
Kurdish Ansar al-Islam movement and is active in
northern parts of the country.
While insurgent car and truck bombings are an almost
daily scourge in central Iraq, this was a rare
incident in the Kurdish autonomous region, which has
been spared the bulk of Iraq's sectarian violence
and insurgent attacks.
In May 2005, a suicide bomber killed 46 people in
Erbil, but otherwise the three predominantly Kurdish
provinces have been largely peaceful.
The blast struck a blow at the Kurdish region's
carefully constructed image of being a unique
peaceful haven amid Iraq's ongoing chaos.
A backwater under former leader Saddam Hussein with
little investment, the economy in the three Kurdish
provinces has been booming with a steady flow of
construction and foreign investment over the past
four years.
The night before the blast, US undersecretary of
defense Paul Brinkley was visiting the city with a
delegation of 20 US businessmen to showcase the
region and encourage investment.
"This is a chance for Western investors to see the
stable regions in Iraq for the purpose of
investments," he told journalists at a press
conference.
Cheney, meanwhile, made a surprise visit to Baghdad
to warn top Iraqi leaders that US patience with
their faltering attempt is
running short.
"There's a lot going on. This is a very important
time. There's a lot to talk about," Cheney said as
he met with US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and
the top commander of US forces in Iraq, General
David Petraeus.
AFP
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