Baghdad, Iraq – A wave of suicide car bombs and explosions rocked the oil-rich city of Kirkuk on Sunday, killing at least 26 people and wounding 85 others, police said.
The restive northern city – considered a likely flash point for sectarian violence because of its combustible mix of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens – declared a state of emergency and hastily erected dozens of checkpoints to thwart further attacks, said police Maj. Jalal Mahmood Aras.
In the deadliest attack, a suicide truck bomb exploded about 10 a.m. outside the Kirkuk police department’s bureau of major crimes, which is between the offices of the country’s two major Kurdish parties. The blast killed 18 people and wounded 58, said Maj. Gen. Hazim al-Khazraji, the general inspector of the Kirkuk police.
“The explosion was so big that it flattened the whole bureau building to the ground,” al-Khazraji said.
Five other blasts around Kirkuk claimed the lives of eight more people and wounded 27, officials said.
The string of attacks in Kirkuk came as police in Baghdad reported the discovery of 24 bullet-riddled corpses that had been dumped in various parts of the capital.
Armed men also assassinated Muhammad Shihab al-Dulaimi, an official with the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni political bloc in parliament, while he was driving his car in the capital’s Mansoor district, said Brig. Gen. Fadhil Abdul Muhsin of the Interior Ministry.
Also Sunday, the U.S. military announced that a sailor assigned to the 1st Marine Logistics Group died Saturday from combat injuries in Anbar province.
No other details were released.
