Attackers target US intelligence HQ in Iraq's Kurdish area

A suicide car bomber struck the US intelligence headquarters here, a Kurdish security official said yesterday. He said four Iraqis were killed, including the bomber and a 12-year-old boy.

The US military in Baghdad said four "Defense Human Intelligence Service" officers were wounded along with a Kurdish peshmerga guard at the building.

The Kurdish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said three of the wounded Americans suffered serious abdominal injuries from flying glass.

The official said the attack was the work of al-Qaeda. He gave no reason for that assessment, but said he was certain Osama bin Laden's organization was behind the attack.

The Ansar al-Islam terrorist organization, with suspected ties to al-Qaeda, was formerly based near Sulaymaniyah, about 50km east of Irbil and near the Iranian border.

Ansar was bombed by US jets during the war and surviving members of the group were thought to have fled to Iran. They are now believed to have returned to Iraq.

Forty-one Iraqis were hurt, the Kurdish official said, adding that the suicide-bomb vehicle was packed with TNT. He said several homes in the neighborhood, which was cordoned off by US soldiers, were destroyed.

Near Baghdad, a US soldier was killed and one was wounded when a homemade bomb exploded near a military vehicle on a supply route northeast of the capital, the US Central Command said yesterday.

The attack occurred at about 5pm Tuesday, the Central Command said on a statement posted on its Web site. The soldiers were from the US Army's 3rd Corp Support Command, it said. The wounded soldier was evacuated to a field hospital.

The death was the first to be reported by the US military in eight days, although sporadic attacks had continued against occupying forces.

A witness to the Irbil attack, Jafar Marouf, a 31-year-old teacher, was visiting a friend Tuesday night on the quiet residential street when he saw a white KIA four-wheel drive approach quickly and then explode with the driver inside. Marouf was slightly injured and spoke from the hospital.

US at the scene yesterday refused to give any information. Dozens of what appeared to be Americans in civilian clothes and wearing flak jackets were coming and going from the scene of the blast in GMC four-wheel drive vehicles.

US had flown to the site by helicopter and were guarding the area together with local Iraqi Kurdish fighters.