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Suicide bomber kills 22 in kirkuk { June 14 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/14/international/middleeast/14cnd-iraq.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/14/international/middleeast/14cnd-iraq.html
June 14, 2005
Suicide Attack Kills at Least 22 in Northern Iraqi City
By EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 14 - A suicide bomber blew himself up today in a crowd of civilians gathered outside a bank in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, killing at least 22 people and injuring 80 others, including Kurdish officials, Iraqi policemen and women and children, police and hospital officials said. It was the deadliest attack in Kirkuk since the start of the guerilla war, police officials said.
The blast took place at 10:30 a.m., as retirees were lining up in front of Al Rafidain Bank to collect their pensions, said Maj. Gen. Shirko Shakir Hakeem, the head of the Kirkuk police force. The bomber was wearing a belt packed with more than 100 pounds of explosives.
"This is the biggest attack in the city since the fall of the regime, and we consider it the most serious challenge to us as security forces," the general said, as victims with minor wounds were being ushered from the overflowing main hospital to make room for the seriously wounded.
In other violence, a suicide car bomber blew himself up at the Kanaan police station, east of the town of Baquba, north of Baghdad, killing at least five policemen and wounding five, a Baquba police official said.
Assaults on large groups of civilians like today's in Kirkuk are relatively rare compared with strikes on Iraqi and American forces, and the bombing signaled a spike in the level of violence in the contested city of Kirkuk, coveted by all the country's major ethnic and sectarian groups because of its vast oil fields.
An elderly housewife who gave her name as Um Danah sat sobbing on the street near pools of blood and charred wreckage.
"May God take revenge on the terrorists," she said. "I don't know anything except that my son is in the hospital. He sells children's toys near the bank. I don't know whether he's alive or not.
"Enough with terrorism and killings," she added. "We're tired and we want God to help us just as he helped his prophets. I beseech him to help the Iraqi people to stop the bloodshed."
So divisive is the issue of Kirkuk that Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the prime minister, directly addressed the tensions in a rare appearance today before the National Assembly. He urged a peaceful political solution to the problem.
The question of who will administer Kirkuk is expected to be one of the most volatile issues in the writing of the new constitution, and clashes over that issue severely delayed the formation of the current government earlier this year.
Analysts have predicted that Kirkuk could descend into civil war before other parts of the country move in the same direction, largely because of the latent hostilities that have emerged there following the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
Kurds displaced from the city during the dictatorship of Mr. Hussein have moved back in droves and are threatening to force out those Arabs whom Mr. Hussein relocated to Kirkuk in the past decades to consolidate his control of the region.
Turkmens, an ethnic group originating from the steppes of Central Asia, are struggling to regain political dominance of the city, which they had under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
The Sunni-led insurgency rages across Tamim Province, the area around Kirkuk, and attacks have been on the rise recently. Last Tuesday, three suicide car bombs exploded simultaneously at checkpoints ringing the rebel stronghold of Hawjia, just 30 miles from Kirkuk, killing at least 20 people and wounding 30 others.
The Iraqi government has been conducting raids in Baghdad as part of what it calls Operation Lightning, pushing insurgents to respond by carrying out deadly assaults outside the capital, particularly in the northern Sunni triangle.
In the Anbar Province to the west, also a base for the insurgency, two soldiers were killed on Monday when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb, the American military said today. More than 1,700 American troops have died in the war.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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