Six die in suicide bomb attack in north Iraq

10.00pm

KIRKUK, Iraq - A suicide bomber killed himself and at least five other people at a police station in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Monday, a police official and an ambulance worker said.

The attack occurred shortly before Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld flew into Baghdad on a previously unannounced visit to assess security in the troubled country almost a year after a US led invasion. Rumsfeld went straight into briefings with US officials in the Iraqi capital.

A police official at Kirkuk General Hospital said the blast wounded 32 people but it was hard to determine the overall casualty toll because the victims were transported to several hospitals.

"We have so far moved six dead and about six wounded," Ihsan Hassan, an ambulance worker, told Reuters.

Another police official said earlier that the attack had been carried out by a suicide bomber driving a car in a Kurdish section of Kirkuk, an oil-rich city 155 miles north of Baghdad where ethnic tensions are running high.

"Parts of the suicide bomber, his legs and hands, were scattered inside the police station," said Amjad Reda, a policemen slightly wounded in the attack.

Like other attacks, the bombing took place while police were vulnerable while changing shifts in the morning.

Pools of blood covered ice and snow patches after the bomber drove his car into the gate of an unfortified police station.

Armed only with AK-47 assault rifles, Iraqi police, who are supposed to take over the security of Iraq, often complain that American troops do not provide them with any protection.

Guerrillas have waged a relentless campaign of suicide and detonation bombings that have killed more than 300 policemen seen as cooperating with American occupation troops.

The latest carnage erupted at a delicate time when Iraq's Kurds are pressing for greater autonomy and competing for influence with other sects and ethnic groups ahead of a US handover of power to Iraqis on June 30.

The American military has repeatedly said Osama bin-Laden's al-Qaeda has infiltrated Iraq to carry out attacks aimed at turning the country's volatile sects against each other to trigger civil war.

Kirkuk's Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, who have attacked each other before, are vying for influence over Kirkuk.

(Reporting by Adnan Hadi, writing by Michael Georgy, editing by Ralph Boulton) str mg



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Herald Feature: Iraq