Twin car bombings in Iraqi city kill 80 By YAHYA BARZANJI, Associated Press Writer
20 minutes ago
Twin suicide car bombings exploded within 20 minutes of each other in the northern city of Kirkuk on Monday, killing at least 80 people and wounding around 150 in attacks targeting a Kurdish political office and ripping through an outdoor market, police said.
The attacks began around noon when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-packed truck near the concrete blast walls of the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
The explosion blasted a 10-yard-deep crater in the pavement and collapsed part of the roof of the one-story PUK office. Outside the offices, the burnt shells of more than two dozen vehicles were in the street.
Soon after, the second bomber attacked the Haseer market, 700 yards away, destroying stalls and cars, said Kirkuk police Brig. Sarhat Qadir.
The outdoor Haseer market — with stalls of vegetable and fruit sellers — is frequented by Kurds in Kirkuk, a city where tensions are high between the Kurdish and Arab populations. At least 80 people were killed and around 140 wounded, said police Brig. Burhan Tayeb Taha.
The attack came just over a week after one of the Iraq conflict's deadliest suicide attacks hit a village about 50 miles south of Kirkuk, killing more than 160 people.
Iraqi officials have said Sunni insurgents are moving further north to carry out attacks, fleeing U.S. offensives in and around Baghdad, including in the city of Baqouba, a stronghold of extremists on the capital's northwestern doorstep. The month-old sweeps aim to pacify the capital and boost the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
U.S. troops launched a new offensive south of Baghdad on Monday, aimed at stopping weapons and fighters from moving into the capital, the military said in a statement.
The statement did not say where the new sweep, code-named Marne Avalanche, was taking place. But in recent days U.S. commanders have said they plan new operations to cut off an insurgent supply route southwest of the city, running from western Anbar province. An offensive has been ongoing for the past month in a region southeast of Baghdad.
Violence appears to have eased in Baghdad in recent weeks — but attacks, including deadly car bombs, remain a daily occurrence.
A string of attacks Monday morning in the capital killed at least nine people. In the deadliest, a roadside bomb exploded as an Iraqi army patrol passed in the Boub al-Sham area on the city's northeast outskirts, killing five soldiers and wounding nine others, an army officer said.
For the second day in a row, a car bomb hit the central district of Karradah on Monday, exploding near Masbah Square, killing one person, wounding three others and leaving nearby shops burned, a police official said. On Sunday, a car bomb went off about a half-mile away, killing 10 people.
Also, mortar shells hit a residential area in Abu Dhsir, a south Baghdad Shiite enclave surrounded by Sunni neighborhood. The attack killed three civilians and wounded six others, said another police official.
On Sunday, 22 bullet-riddled bodies were found dumped in various locations of Baghdad, apparently the latest victims of sectarian violence, police said. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the reports.
The military announced Monday that an American soldier died from wounds received the day before by a bombing in Ninevah province, northwest of Kirkuk.
Meanwhile, a group of 24 Iranians escaped from detention in an Iraqi police station in the southern town of Badra this week, police in the town said. They broke out Saturday evening, and while four were quickly re-captured, the remainder may have fled across the nearby border, a police officer in the nearby city of Kut said.
The Iranians had been detained on suspicion of illegally entering the country, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Thousands of Iranians enter Iraq — particularly the Shiite heartland in the south — for pilgrimage and business, but the U.S. also accuses Iran's Revolutionary Guards of organizing Shiite militants into cells and arming them to attack U.S. and Iraqi forces.
Meanwhile, parliament convened on Monday as Iraqi politicians tried to end a pair of boycotts of the legislature that are holding up work on crucial reforms sought by Washington
The top Sunni party, the Iraqi Accordance Party has refused to attend parliament to protest the removal of the Sunni speaker of parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani. The Shiite-dominated parliament voted June 11 to remove al-Mashhadani because of erratic behavior and comments that frequently embarrassed al-Maliki's government.
Sunnis also want the government to set aside an arrest warrant against the Sunni culture minister, accused of ordering an assassination attempt against a fellow Sunni legislator.
Adnan al-Dulaimi, the Accordance Front leader, met Sunday with al-Maliki to discuss the Sunni boycott. After the meeting, al-Dulaimi's spokesman, Muhannad al-Issawi, said that the boycott would continue and if the speaker were replaced, the decision should be made by the Sunnis and "not imposed" by Shiites and Kurds.
But al-Dulaimi was more optimistic about a settlement that would allow the Sunnis to return.
"Things are, God willing, on their way to be resolved," al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press. "The pending issue of al-Mashhadani and that of the minister of culture will be solved by the end of the week, and things will go back to their normal course."
Hassan al-Suneid, a Shiite lawmaker close to al-Maliki, also said a deal was near under which al-Mashhadani could return to his post briefly, then permitted to retire.
Meanwhile, a member of the Shiite Sadr bloc said his faction would meet Monday with parliament leaders to discuss their own boycott, launched to protest delays in rebuilding a Shiite shrine in Samarra that was damaged by a bomb in February 2006.
The absence of the two major blocs has delayed work on such key benchmark legislation as the oil bill, constitutional reform, scheduling local elections and restoring many former Saddam Hussein loyalists to government jobs.
Those are among the 18 benchmarks that Washington uses to measure progress toward national reconciliation. A White House report last week found that Iraqis had made only limited progress, fueling calls for a U.S. troop withdrawal.
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Associated Press Writer Bushra Juhi in Baghdad contributed to this report. |
