|
Iraqi bombs kill 30
14/06/2005 13:37 - (SA)
Kirkuk - Bomb attacks in northern Iraq killed at least 30 people and wounded 88 on Tuesday, as the autonomous Kurdish region installed Massoud Barzani as its first president.
Police said the most lethal attack brought death to at least 20 people in a crowd of civil servants, outside a bank in the northern oil hub of Kirkuk, adding that 81 were wounded.
Kirkuk police chief major general Turhan Yusif said a suicide bomber blew himself up in the queue at al-Rafidain bank in the city centre.
Colonel Shirzad Abdullah of Rahimao police said: "Most of the casualties were civil servants, lining up outside the bank to receive their monthly pay."
The attack was carried out shortly before Kurdish leader Barzani was sworn in as president of three provinces in northern Iraq, an event that sealed their long fought-for autonomy, but did not resolve the disputed status of Kirkuk, the city the Kurds wanted as their capital.
'10 killed, seven wounded'
According to security and hospital sources, a car bomb killed 10 more Iraqis, including two children, and wounded seven.
An Iraqi army officer said: "Ten people were killed in all and seven wounded", adding four deaths among his own soldiers to an earlier report of six dead and four wounded.
A police officer said the troops had been called in to reinforce a police station in the town of Kanaan that was under mortar attack, and were targeted by a car bomb parked nearby.
In Arbil, Barzani, son of the Kurdish nationalist hero Mullah Mustafa Barzani, took the oath of office before the 111-member Kurdish parliament after being formally selected on Sunday as president of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Saddam's Baath party
A giant portrait of Mustafa Barzani overlooked the assembly, flanked by Kurdish flags representing the territory he had claimed for Kurds in the middle of the 20th century before Saddam Hussein's Baath party came to power.
Parliament speaker, Adnan al-Mufti, said: "The choice of Barzani as regional president crowns hundreds of years of struggle, strewn with the bodies of martyrs."
In Baghdad, the Iraqi court set up to try Saddam, released a video on Monday that showed the deposed dictator answering questions.
Judge Raed al-Juhi, a member of the Iraqi Special Tribunal, said without elaborating: "I have given the approval to release the tape."
'Saddam questioned for 1982 killing'
The footage showed Juhi questioning a bearded, seemingly weary Saddam who wore a white shirt and black jacket.
The questions reportedly concerned the 1982 killing of 143 residents of Dujail, a Shiite village northeast of Baghdad.
Saddam, who had been in United States custody in Iraq since his capture in December 2003, was accused of ordering revenge murders after villagers allegedly tried to assassinate him.
He was also accused of a litany of other crimes against humanity.
He could face the death penalty if convicted.
|
News
