Region | Iraq
Barzani party office bombed
A suicide truck bomber crashed into the offices of a Kurdish political party, killing at least 50 people and wounding scores, including a mayor, officials said.
- AP
- Published: 00:00 May 14, 2007
Baghdad: A suicide truck bomber crashed into the offices of a Kurdish political party yesterday, killing at least 50 people and wounding scores, including a mayor, officials said. It was the second suicide attack in Kurdish areas of the north in four days.
A parked car bomb also exploded near a market in central Baghdad yesterday, killing at least 17 Iraqis, wounding 46, police said. Gunmen attacked a police station south of Baquba, killing one officer and wounding four other people, including a 15-year-old girl, police said.
The 10.30am suicide truck bomb attack in Makhmur, 50km south of Arbil, badly damaged the office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Massoud Barzani, leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.
Makhmur is just south of the autonomous Kurdish-controlled areas but it has a substantial Kurdish population.
The blast also killed the police chief and damaged the mayor's office, officials said. Ziryan Othman, the health minister of the Kurdish regional government, said at least 50 were killed and 115 wounded, including the city's mayor, Abdul Rahman Delaf, who is also a prominent Kurdish writer, and the director of KDP office.
Most of the small KDP building appeared to have been destroyed. Other buildings had walls blown out.
Herish Karim, a 42-year-old Kurdish taxi driver, said he was parking his car when the "thunderous" explosion occurred, shattering the windows of his car and injuring his chest.
"Makhmur is an open, peaceful area, and Al Qaida is trying to destabilise it by causing fighting between Arabs and Kurds," Qasim Ameen, 61, a Kurd, said.
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