A car bomb exploded early yesterday in the Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk in a protected area containing the US and British consulates, as well as the headquarters of the Northern Oil company, killing two people, police said.
The blast occurred shortly after midnight next to a row of shops in the Arafa Naftiya area of the northern Iraq city, a predominantly Christian neighborhood that has access controlled by checkpoints.
"The explosion happened when the car was parked near a group of stores," said Colonel Efram Hanna, the head of police in the area.
It was the first time a car bomb had exploded in that part of town. Until recently, Kirkuk as whole had long been spared the massive explosions and car bombs common in other parts of the country.
On Saturday, a car bomb exploded in front of a gas station, killing six and wounding 17, while on July 23, another massive car bomb involving about one tonne of dynamite exploded in front of the courthouse, killing 22 people and wounding 100.
The US military in Kirkuk has attributed the rise in attacks to elements of al-Qaeda in Iraq that have previously not been active around Kirkuk. The al-Qaeda fighters are thought to be hoping to promote civil strife in the area -- much the same way as they have farther south.
Kirkuk is a fragile mix of Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Turkmen, Christians and Shiites that for the most part have found ways of working out their differences through an ethnically and confessionally mixed provincial council.
Meanwhile, three Iraqis were killed and 11 others injured in other attacks in Iraq, police sources said.
An Iraqi policemen was killed and another injured when a roadside bomb struck a police patrol in central Fallujah, 70km west of Baghdad, a police source said.
Following the explosion, the policeman detained two suspects who were spotted near the site of the blast, the source said.
In a separate attack, a roadside bomb exploded when a passenger bus was passing near Mahaweel, about 80km to the south of Baghdad, killing the driver and a passenger and injuring 10 others, a police source said.
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