A rchive Date
[ 01-02-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]
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[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4016883/
Suicide bombers hit Kurdish party office in Iraq
One official says death toll could rise above 100
The Associated Press
Updated: 9:29 a.m. ET Feb. 01, 2004
IRBIL, Iraq - Two suicide bombers struck the offices of two rival Kurdish parties in near-simultaneous attacks Sunday as hundreds of Iraqis gathered to celebrate a Muslim holiday. At least 57 people were killed and more than 235 were wounded, officials said.
One Kurdish minister said the death toll could top 100.
The attack was believed to be the deadliest since an Aug. 29 car bombing in the holy city of Najaf killed Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim and more than 100 others.
The attack also was believed to have been the first in which the suicide attackers wired bombs to themselves and detonated them while on foot, akin to the suicide attacks by Palestinian militants in Israel.
There have been a multitude of suicide car bombings in Iraq.
Bombing in Polish-controlled region
Also Sunday, about 20 Iraqis were killed in an explosion at a munitions dump in the Polish-controlled south-central region of the country, according to a spokesman for Polish-led international peacekeepers.
The blast occurred after midnight in the desert about 112 miles southwest of Karbala after Iraqis broke into the munitions storage site, military spokesman Col. Robert Strzelecki told the Polish news agency PAP. Karbala is about 60 miles southwest of Baghdad. U.S. military officials had no information on the blast.
Strzelecki said it was unclear what caused the blast. The dump, formerly used by Saddam Hussein’s army, consists of about 100 bunkers spread over a wide area and contained munitions such as artillery shells and rockets, he told PAP.
Attacks at start of holiday
The suicide attacks at the Irbil offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan occurred as party leaders were receiving hundreds of visitors to mark the start of the four-day Muslim holiday, Eid Al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice.
The dead included the governor of the region, ministers in the local administration and several senior officials, Mohammed Ihsan, the minister for human rights for the Kurdish regional government, told The Associated Press. The U.S. command in Baghdad said it had no information about the attack.
Irbil city morgue director Tawana Kareem told the AP that 57 bodies were brought to the morgue and “figures are increasing.” At least 235 people were admitted to the city’s three hospitals with injuries, medical sources said.
“These figures are estimates but I believe about 60 people were killed at the PUK and about 80 at the KDP. There are a tremendous number of injured,” Ihsan said.
“On the first day of Eid we receive people and well wishers and that’s why security wasn’t as tight as during the rest of the days. They (the attackers) took advantage of this.”
U.S. military officials had said they were prepared for any upsurge of violence in connection with the holiday. The start of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan last year marked a sharp escalation in violence against the U.S.-led coalition and its Iraqi allies.
Ihsan said the targeted sites were the parties’ branch offices, about eight miles apart.
Emergency declared
A state of emergency was declared in the Kurdish area, and doctors have been asked to return from vacation. An urgent appeal has been issued to residents to donate blood.
The dead include Irbil Gov. Akram Mintik, Deputy Prime Minister Sami Abdul Rahman, Minister of Council of Ministers Affairs Shawkat Sheik Yazdin and Agriculture Minister Saad Abdullah, Ihsan said. Irbil is about 200 miles north of the capital, Baghdad.
The PUK and KDP parties control the Kurdish-dominated provinces of northern Iraq where most of the country’s minority Kurds live.
Nobody claimed responsibility. However, a radical Kurdish group, Ansar al-Islam, operates in the Kurdish region and has been linked by U.S. officials to al-Qaida.
Thousands of people crowded outside Irbil’s hospital looking for loved ones but were kept out by police.
Officials said the top Kurdish leaders were greeting people when the attacker approached them and detonated the explosives strapped around his body.
The second attack took place at about the same time in the PUK office across town, PUK spokesman Kadhim Ali said. Several people were killed and injured in the PUK attack, he said.
Irbil houses the Kurdish parliament. Under U.S.-led aerial protection, Iraqi Kurds, ethnically distinct from the majority Arabs, have ruled a Switzerland-sized swath of northern Iraq since the end of the Gulf War more than a decade ago.
Wolfowitz visits Iraq
The attacks coincided with a visit to Baghdad by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who arrived on Saturday to boost the morale of troops. Wolfowitz, whose visit was not disclosed before his arrival, was planning to watch the Super Bowl with U.S. troops Sunday, but it was not known where.
The suicide bombings came a day after a car bomb outside a police station in the northern city of Mosul killed at least nine people and wounded 45. It was unclear whether that attack was a suicide bombing or whether the driver fled before the explosion. U.S. officials have said recent vehicle bombings and suicide attacks in Iraq bear the mark of al-Qaida.
Hours later, a mortar attack hit a Baghdad neighborhood, killing five people and wounding four.
Also Saturday, three U.S. soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division were killed in a roadside bombing near the northern oil center of Kirkuk. Their deaths brought to 522 the number of American service members who have died since the Iraq war began March 20.
The mortar landed in the Baladiyaat neighborhood, a predominantly Palestinian immigrant area, on Saturday night, gouging a crater in the ground and sending shrapnel flying.
Four Palestinian residents were killed, neighbors and relatives said. The fifth victim was an Iraqi who was visiting the area, they said.
Residents on Sunday carried the bodies of the four Palestinians in coffins draped in Palestinian flags from a mosque to their homes before taking them to a cemetery for burial. Some young men in the funeral procession fired rifles in the air, a traditional Arab gesture.
Although it was not known who fired the mortar, angry mourners blamed the United States. Many women in the procession sobbed. Men chanted “Allahu Akbar!”, or “God is Great!”, “America is the enemy of Allah!” and “A martyr is God’s beloved!”
Two of the dead - Ihsan Hussein, 40, and his son, Ahmed Hussein, 18 - were hit in the head by shrapnel that went through the windows of their apartment, said the elder Hussein’s sister, Fatma Hussein.
A third victim was 18-year-old Samy Abbas, said his mother Zahriya Abdul Rahman. The identities of the other two people killed were not immediately known.
The last major attack in Irbil occurred Dec. 24 when a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed car in front of the Kurdish Interior Ministry, killing four civilians and wounding 101.
© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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