Kurdistan Region – At least 190 people were killed and injured in a series of bomb attacks in Kirkuk on Wednesday, health officials told Rudaw.
One of the attacks targeted the office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by Massoud Barzani, the president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region.
“A suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives outside the KDP headquarters,” police Brigadier Sarhat Qadir told Reuters news agency. “It’s a crowded area, dozens were killed and wounded”.
The blasts destroyed many cars and parts of a nearby local market.
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) spokesperson Safin Dizayi said that victims of the bomb attacks have been taken to Kirkuk’s hospitals.
Dizayi also maintained that following the explosions the Kurdish government in Erbil held an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the situation in Kirkuk.
In a separate attack in Tuz Khuramtu, five people were killed and more than 36 were wounded when a car bomb struck the headquarters of the Kurdish security forces.
Hundreds of people have been killed in some of the deadliest attacks in Kirkuk since 2003. So far no one has claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s deadly attacks in Kirkuk and other parts of the country.
The attacks come amidst widespread demonstrations in Iraq’s Sunni provinces against the government of Prime Minister Nuri Maliki, and a military standoff between Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Iraqi troops south of Kirkuk.
The multiethnic and oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 295 kilometers north of Baghdad, is at the heart of the country’s disputed territories.
Also on Tuesday, prominent Sunni MP from the Iraqiya bloc, Eifan Saadoun was killed in a suicide bomb attack in Falluja, just a day after Finance Minister Rafei el-Essawi survived a similar attempt on his life as he traveled to the city.
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