A police officer takes in the damage at the scene of a bombing in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. (Reuters / May 19, 2011)
A double bombing killed at least 27 people, almost all of them police officers, and wounded dozens in a parking lot outside the main police offices in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq on Thursday, according to security officials.
The attack came after a car bombing early this month outside a police station in the southern city of Hillah that killed 16 people, including some officers, and a later failed jailbreak from Baghdad’s Interior Ministry compound that left six police officers dead, including a counter-terrorism general.
Eight police officers were wounded when a roadside bomb targeted their convoy as they rushed to the scene in Kirkuk.
The spate of attacks and daring attempts to escape jail has put Iraq’s forces under new scrutiny as the last of the U.S. troops prepare to leave the country at the end of the year. “This has the fingerprint of Al Qaeda,” said Brig. Jamal Tahi, Kirkuk’s police chief.
Kirkuk is rife with ethnic and sectarian tensions among Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens, all of whom view themselves as the rightful owners of the province with immense oil reserves. The Kurds wish to annex the area to their semiautonomous Kurdistan region, while Arabs insist it should be under Baghdad’s control. Despite eight years of U.S.-backed efforts to mediate a solution, the sides remain at loggerheads.
Armed groups hope to exploit the population’s differences with bombings and killings.
On Thursday, a bomb hidden in a car exploded in a parking lot where police officers and Kurdish intelligence officers often mingle and drink tea. Eight people were wounded, all of them police. Officers worried about damage to their cars rushed to the parking lot and right into a trap: The attackers then detonated a second car bomb, which witnesses and security officials said killed 27 people.
“I always left my car in this park. Most of our friends left their cars in this place,” said police officer Fadl Ahmed. “I saw about 20 policemen’s bodies. There were too many wounded. Everyone was crying. There was too much blood all over the place.”
Ahmed mourned his friends. “I saw one of my officers. I had said good morning to him by the lot and when I came back, he was dead.”
The casualties included Arabs as well as Kurds, all of whom are represented on the province’s mixed police force.
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