Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the offices of two rival Kurdish parties in this northern Iraqi city, and officials said "dozens" may have been killed -- including senior party leaders.
The near-simultaneous attacks at the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan took place as party leaders were receving hundreds of visitors to mark the start of the four-day Muslim holiday, Eid Al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice.
Irbil is about 325km north of Baghdad.
A KDP official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said "dozens have been killed and dozens were injured." He said the casualties are being evacuated to two hospitals in the region.
The official said the Irbil governor, the deputy governor and the deputy finance minister were among those killed.
PUK spokesman Qubad Talabani told CNN that the death toll "could well be in the dozens and the numbers are rising ... by the minute."
"The scene is pretty chaotic at the moment. We are hearing reports of many casualties. There are many many injured as well," he said, adding he could not confirm that senior officials were killed.
Meanwhile, hundreds of mourners chanting "God is great" walked through a Baghdad neighborhood yesterday carrying coffins after an overnight mortar attack in the area killed five people and injured four.
The mortar landed in the Baladiyaat, a predominantly Palestinian immigrant area, on Saturday night, hours after a car bombing in the northern city of Mosul killed nine people and injured 45. Also Saturday, three US soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in the northern oil center of Kirkuk.
The violence occurred amid fears that insurgents would step up attacks during the four-day Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice, which began yesterday, the day Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz flew to Iraq to visit US troops.
It was not known why the mortar was fired into the residential area of Baladiyaat where the projectile gouged a crater and sent shrapnel flying all around, killing four Palestinian residents, neighbors and relatives said. The fifth victim was an Iraqi who was visiting the area, they said.
Two of the dead -- Ihsan Hussein 40, and his son, Ahmed Hussein, 18 -- were hit in the head by shrapnel that went through the windows of their apartment in a three-story house, said the elder Hussein's sister, Fatma Hussein, who lives nearby.
"We heard a very strong explosion and saw smoke. We ran downstairs and saw people injured," she said.
A third victim was 18-year-old Samy Abbas, who was standing in front of the building when the mortar landed, said his mother Zahriya Abdul Rahman. The identities of the remaining two people killed were not immediately known.
Residents carried the bodies of the four Palestinians in coffins draped in Palestinian flags from a mosque to their homes before taking them to a cemetery for burial. Some young men in the funeral procession fired rifles in the air, a traditional gesture by Arab while mourning as well as celebrating.
Many women in the procession sobbed. Men chanted "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great," "America is the enemy of Allah," and "A martyr is God's beloved."
Although it wasn't known who fired the mortar, angry mourners blamed the US.
"It is the Americans and the Zionists who are behind this attack. They want to cause strife between the Iraqis and the Palestinians," said Osama Mohammed, a 38-year-old resident.
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