A suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a crowded coffee shop late on Friday in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, killing at least 38 and wounding more than two dozen in the latest in a string of bloody attacks pounding Iraq since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan this week.
Another suicide bomber and a shooting elsewhere in the country killed five members of Iraq’s security forces, bringing Friday’s death toll to 43.
The late-night blast in Kirkuk’s Wahed Huzeiran District ripped through the Classico Cafe as patrons were enjoying tea and water pipes after the sunset meal that breaks the day-long Ramadan fast, police officials said.
Photo: AFP
“I left the cafe to go to my shop opposite. When the explosion happened the glass of my shop shattered and I was injured by the fragments. I rushed to the scene ... some bodies were dismembered,” eyewitness Mohammed said.
Earlier in the day, a suicide car bomber struck a police patrol outside the northern city of Mosul, killing four policemen, a police officer and a medical official said.
Outside the northern city of Tikrit, drive-by shooters armed with pistols fitted with silencers killed a senior police officer in the town of Shirqat.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the Kirkuk bombing or other recent attacks.
Kirkuk is a flashpoint for ethnic tensions, with its mix of Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen holding competing claims to claims for control of the oil-rich area. The Kurds want the city to be incorporated into their autonomous region in the north.
A referendum to determine Kirkuk’s status was supposed to be conducted in 2007, but political discord prevented it being carried out.
Iraq’s delicate ethno-sectarian balance has come under growing strain from the conflict in Syria, where mainly Sunni rebels are fighting to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
At least 761 people were killed in militant attacks across Iraq last month, according to the UN.
On Thursday, at least 66 people were killed in bomb and gun attacks across Iraq. A car bomb at a Shiite mosque in Dujail overnight brought the number of people killed that day to 76, police said.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS