(Reuters) – A suicide bomber killed ten people in Iraq’s Kirkuk on Wednesday after he detonated his explosive-packed truck outside a Kurdish party office in the city caught in a dispute between Baghdad and the country’s autonomous Kurdistan, officials said.
Passersby and police helped carry bloodied wounded out of the rubble and wrecked vehicles after the huge blast tore through a commercial street in Kirkuk near the local headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party or KDP.
“A suicide bomber driving a truck packed with explosives detonated the vehicles outside the KDP headquarters. It’s a crowded area, dozens were killed and wounded, Police Brigadier Sarhat Qadir told Reuters.
Siddiq Omar, a local Kirkuk health official, said at least 10 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded.
Another two people died and 20 more were wounded in another bombing outside a rival political party office in Tuz Khurmato, 170 km (105 miles) north of the capital.
The attacks came before Iraq’s Arab-led central government planned talks with officials from the Kurdistan enclave to ease tensions over disputed oilfields and areas like Kirkuk where they both claim jurisdiction.
(Reporting by Baghdad newsroom and Mustafa Mahmoud; writing by Patrick Markey)
