55 dead in Iraq restaurant blast

12 Dec 2008, 12:58 pm   -   Source: AFP
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Up to 55 people were killed in a suicide bomb blast in Kirkuk, Iraq. (RTV)

Up to 55 people were killed in a suicide bomb blast in Kirkuk, Iraq. (RTV)

A suicide bomber has killed at least 55 people in a packed restaurant near the northern city of Kirkuk where Kurdish officials and Arab tribal leaders were trying to reconcile their differences over control of the oil-rich region.

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A suicide bomber has killed at least 55 people in a packed restaurant near the northern city of Kirkuk where Kurdish officials and Arab tribal leaders were trying to reconcile their differences over control of the oil-rich region.

Thursday's brazen attack - the deadliest in Iraq in six months - occurred at a time of rising tensions between Kurds and Arabs over oil, political power and Kirkuk.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack at the upscale Abdullah restaurant, which was crowded with families celebrating the end of the four-day Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha.

The United States blamed the blast on al-Qaeda.

Police Brigadier General Sarhad Qadir, who gave the casualty figure, said the dead included at least five women and three children. About 120 people were wounded.

It appeared the target was a reconciliation meeting between Arab tribal leaders and officials of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdish party of President Jalal Talabani, on ways to defuse tension among Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen in the Kirkuk area.
   
Kurds want to annex Kirkuk and surrounding Tamim province into their self-ruled region of northern Iraq.
   
Most Turkomen and Arabs want the province to remain under central government control, fearing the Kurds would discriminate against them.

Iraq's parliament exempted the Kirkuk area from next month's provincial elections because the different ethnic groups could not agree on how to share power.

A guard at the entrance said the blast occurred moments after a man parked his car and walked inside.
   
He was not searched because the guards had not been told to frisk customers, the guard said. He spoke on condition of anonymity.

At the city's main hospital, family members wept and screamed in the blood-smeared corridors as doctors tried to save lives.
   
Many victims were horrifically wounded, and mangled bodies lay unattended on the emergency room floor.
   
Salam Abdullah, a 45-year-old Kurd, said he was having lunch with his wife when they saw shrapnel flying through the room.
   
"I held my wife and led her outside the place. As we were leaving, I saw dead bodies soaked with blood and huge destruction," he said.
   
Abdullah suffered wounds to his head and hand; his wife suffered head and chest injuries.
   
"I do not know how a group like al-Qaeda claiming to be Islamic plans to attack and kill people on sacred days like Eid," said Awad al-Jubouri, 53, one of the tribal leaders at the lunch.
   
"We were only meeting to discuss our problems with the Kurds and trying to impose peace among Muslims in Kirkuk."
   
The attack was the deadliest in Iraq since June 7, when a car bomb killed 63 people in a Shi'ite neighbourhood of Baghdad.
   
US officials say attacks are down 80 per cent nationwide since March, though major bombings still occur. A double truck bombing killed 17 people on December 4 in the former Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah west of Baghdad.
   
It was unclear what effect Thursday's attack would have on reconciliation efforts in Kirkuk, since the victims included both Arabs and Kurds.

Mass attacks against civilians have prompted many Sunnis to turn against the insurgency.
   
But ethnic competition is intense in Kirkuk and elsewhere in the volatile north, the most ethnically mixed part of the country.
   
The UN mission, which has been trying to defuse tension in Kirkuk, urged community leaders "to demonstrate responsible leadership and to urge restraint by their followers at this difficult time".
   
In a joint statement, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and the top US commander General Ray Odierno condemned the bombing and accused al-Qaeda of trying to "divide Iraqi communities" and halt the progress toward "a stable, inclusive and tolerant society".
   
US commanders have long believed that resolving differences among the ethnic communities is the key to defeating the insurgents

in the north because al-Qaeda and the dozen other Sunni extremist groups there exploit those tensions.
   
But progress has been difficult because of deep-seated suspicions and conflicting claims on Kirkuk, the centre of Iraq's vast northern oil fields which the Kurds have long wanted to bring into their autonomous region.
   
Iraq's constitution provides for a referendum to be held in Kirkuk to determine whether it would be annexed to the Kurdish regional administration.

 

But the vote has been repeatedly postponed because of fears that the balloting would worsen ethnic tension.

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