Bombings in northern Iraq kill 7

[February 09, 2011]  BAGHDAD (AP) -- A suicide bomber struck a Kurdish security headquarters in the first of rapid-fire attacks Wednesday through the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk that killed seven and wounded up to 80 people in the heart of a region of long-simmering ethnic tensions.

Within minutes, two more bombs hit nearby, sending dark plumes of smoke into the clear winter sky and ending a six-month lull in violence in a city located 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Baghdad that officials fear will become Iraq's next flashpoint.

Police Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir said two policemen were among the dead, while five police and eight officials with the Kurdish intelligence forces known as the Asayish were wounded. Dr. Khalid Ahmed of Kirkuk emergency hospital confirmed the total casualty count of seven killed and as many as 80 injured.

"We had just passed the car bomb -- it was less than 40 yards away," said policeman Meriwan Salih, whose arm was broken and who had shrapnel pierce his back when the third bomb exploded as his patrol sped by. "The huge blast threw me into the air."

Kirkuk's police chief, Maj. Gen. Jamal Tahir, said the suicide bomber slammed his pickup truck into a blast wall surrounding the Asayish headquarters around 10 a.m., sending flames through the building and cratering its front facade.

The second explosion hit a few blocks away, near a gas station. AP Television News footage showed police cars with blaring sirens racing to the Asayish headquarters when the third blast exploded, just down the street from where the suicide bomber struck.

The third bombing knocked people to the ground, and was immediately followed by gunshots.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but Tahir said the Arab militant group Ansar al-Sunna last week threatened to target Kurdish security forces and political parties in Kirkuk.

"We have informed all security headquarters and political parties then to be careful and take security measures," Tahir said. He said Kirkuk police also will investigate how the bombers got past security precautions to launch the attacks.

Kirkuk is the epicenter of ethnic tensions among Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen. The city also sits on top of one-third of Iraq's estimated $11 trillion in oil reserves, and Arabs fear the Kurds want to annex Kirkuk to their northern autonomous region.

Last summer, Gen. Ray Odierno, who was then the top American military commander in Iraq, said U.N. peacekeeping forces may need to replace departing U.S. troops in disputed region if the feud between Arabs and minority Kurds continues through this year. His comments underscored the fragility of the area's security -- and the dangers if it is disrupted -- although U.N. officials have not embraced his suggestion.

Grocery owner Shakhwan Ahmed, 30, said one of the blasts shook his shop, sending fruit and boxes crashing to the ground.

"It was chaos -- horrified people were running," said Ahmed, lamenting the attack after what he said was a nearly six-month lull in violence in Kirkuk. "There is no indication that there will be long-standing security in Iraq; there is always a security problem here. And terrorists are now telling us that they are coming back."

The regional tensions also have stalled a long-awaited national census that would determine the real numbers of the country's religious and ethnic groups. But the count also could inflame the larger dispute over territory and oil between Iraq's central government and the semiautonomous Kurdish region in the north.

Central Statistics Authority spokesman Abdul-Zahra Hendawi said Wednesday the census is still stalled, which he blamed on "deep differences and mistrust" among Kirkuk's ethnic groups.

Violence across Iraq has dropped dramatically from just a few years ago, but bombings and shootings still occur almost every day. In Baghdad, two minor bombings that appeared to target police wounded six people earlier Wednesday.

[Associated Press; By HAMID AHMED and LARA JAKES]

Associated Press writer Yahya Barzanji in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq, contributed to this report.

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