Suicide bombers in Kirkuk attack show al-Qa’ida retains its influence
Suicide bombers killed at least 16 people outside the police
headquarters in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk today in the third
such attack in the region in recent weeks.
A vehicle painted to resemble a police car and packed with
explosives, was first detonated at the side entrance of the police
station before two gunmen dressed as police, wearing explosive belts,
tried to fight their way into the building. Both were killed before they
could blow themselves up. At least 12 government employees died and a
large crater was left in the road.
According to some sources, as
many as 33 people may have been killed and 90 wounded in the attack,
which also injured the Kirkuk police chief, Sarhan Qader. Like its
recent predecessors, the attack has the hallmarks of a well-coordinated
al-Qa’ida operation.
Kirkuk, with its mixed Kurdish, Arab and
Turkmen population, has been controlled by the Kurds since they captured
it at the time of the US-led invasion in 2003. But Kurdish claims to
Kirkuk have never been recognised by the government in Baghdad, which
also disputes the right of the Kurdistan Regional Government to award
oil exploration contracts to foreign companies. There have also been a
series of stand-offs in the so-called “disputed territories” between
Kurdish and government forces, although most confrontations have been
defused.
Al-Qa’ida, while not the force it was in 2006-07, is
still capable of recruiting suicide bombers and making sophisticated
attacks.
The official police account says “a suicide bomber
driving a vehicle packed with explosives hit the entrance of the
headquarters and after the blast gunmen in explosive vests attacked with
AK47s and grenades, but the guards killed them.”
It is not clear
exactly how the latest attacks relate to ethnic divisions in and around
Kirkuk, but they appear to be aimed at contesting the Kurds’ de facto
control. One of the bloodiest recent bombings was directed at Shia
Turkmen in the town Tuz Kharmato, south of Kirkuk, when a bomber killed
23 people inside a mosque.
Some 4,400 people were killed in attacks and bombings in Iraq in 2012, the first increase in three years.
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