Car Bomb Rocks Iraqi Oil City Under "Terrorist" Assault
Ankit Gupta - All Headline News Staff Writer Kirkuk, Iraq (AHN) - Insurgents detonated a car bomb in a protected enclave housing the US and British consulates in Iraq's oil city of Kirkuk during the latest in a string of deadly blasts. City leaders described the two-month-old bombing campaign as the work of Islamist extremists bent on terrorizing the population and fomenting civil strife in the ethnically and religiously mixed city. The blast, which killed two and wounded six, came in the previously untouched Arafa Naftiya area, a predominantly Christian locality having the headquarters of the Northern Oil company and foreign consulates. "The terrorists are now going after gatherings of civilians to spread fear and hatred in the souls of the innocent," Rizgar Ali, chairman of the provincial council, said. Earlier, six were killed and 17 wounded by a car bomb near a gas station. Kirkuk police Chief Major General Shirku Shakr Hakim said the Sunni extremist Ansar al-Sunna and al-Qaeda in Iraq organizations are believed to be mainly responsible for the attacks. In other violence around the country, a police patrol in Hilla, 120 kilometers (75 miles) South of Baghdad, was targeted by a roadside bomb that killed two civilians and wounded 10 others. In the Northern City of Mosul, a suicide car bomber attacked a police patrol, killing one and wounding three. Meanwhile, British forces killed two gunmen and w |
