Iraqi militant group Army of Ansar al-Sunna said it was behind a suicide bombing which killed at least 46 people at Kurdish party offices in northern Iraq yesterday, according to an Internet statement.
Addressing leading Kurdish politician Massoud Barzani, the group vowed to mount more attacks on Kurds.
"Be aware you apostate [Barzani] that we are preparing more for you so wait for it sooner rather than later," said the statement posted on the group's Web site.
PHOTO: AFP
An Iraqi carrying hidden explosives set them off outside a police recruitment center yesterday where many people were applying for jobs yesterday, killing dozens of Iraqis and wounding about 100, officials said.
Casualty estimates varied.
At least seven cars parked near the center were destroyed by the blast in Irbil, a Kurdish city 350km north of Baghdad. Several nearby buildings were damaged.
Pools of blood formed on the street outside the center, as ambulances and cabs raced to the chaotic scene to take casualties to local hospitals.
Several of the hospitals became so crowded with wounded Iraqis that staff members used a loudspeaker to give the names and room numbers of the victims to relatives who rushed there.
Governor Nozad Hadi said 46 people were killed and 100 wounded. US Navy Chief Petty Officer Jame Drake said 50 Iraqis died and 100 were injured. State-owned TV in Iraq and al-Arabiya television gave even higher casualty figures: 60 dead and 150 wounded.
Drake also said there were conflicting reports about the cause of the blast, one blaming a pedestrian with hidden explosives, another a car packed with a bomb.
The attack came as many civilians were applying for Iraqi police jobs at the recruitment center in a two-story building in an upscale residential neighborhood that includes a Sheraton Hotel.
Police first said the man with the explosives had set them off inside the center, but police Captain Othman Aziz later said the attacker did that outside the building because of the heavy security there. It wasn't immediately known whether the attacker was carrying the explosives under his clothes or in something he was carrying, police said.
Iraqi civilian Hawra Mohammed, 37, said he had just dropped his brother Ahmed, 32, off at the center to apply for a job and driven away when the explosion occurred.
When Hawra raced back, he found his brother lying in a street, bleeding and unconscious. But Ahmed soon began to move.
"I lifted my brother onto my shoulders and took him to a nearby hospital," Hawra said. "The blood on my shirt is my brother's."
Hawra said he nearly fainted at the sight of dead bodies outside the recruitment center, and that many of the victims were unemployed, just like his brother, and wanted to earn money as policemen.
The attack appeared to be the deadliest by insurgents in Iraq since Feb. 28, when a suicide car bomber struck a crowd of police and national guard recruits outside a medical clinic in Hillah, south of the capital.
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