KIRKUK, Iraq, 16 October 2006 — Insurgent car bombers blitzed the Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk yesterday, killing 11 people and wounding 62 in five brutal attacks, including one on a school training young women teachers.
Brig. Gen. Adel Ibrahim of the Kirkuk police said three of the blasts were triggered by suicide car bombers, one was a booby-trapped car and another a makeshift bomb planted in a residential neighborhood. In one of the attacks, a bomber detonated a car laden with explosives in front of a school which trains young women aged between 16 and 20 to become teachers, killing two of the students and wounding 25 more, he said.
“A suicide bomber blew himself up as the girls were leaving the school. Two of them were completely burned in the flames,” the brigadier told AFP.
Attacks on women professionals are becoming common in Iraq, where some extremists are attempting to bomb working women back into their homes and freeze them out of public life.
Another suicide attack killed five members of an Iraqi armed security force set up to protect government offices, and a third ripped through a crowded street market. Kirkuk’s police chief, Maj. Gen. Torhan Yussef, told AFP that a total of 11 people were killed and 62 wounded in the wave of explosions.
Meanwhile, violence continued elsewhere in the country, including in the war-torn capital, which is in the grip of a savage wave of sectarian violence with rival Shiite and Sunni death squads competing to slaughter civilians. The US military also announced the deaths of three US soldiers in south Baghdad when a roadside bomb destroyed their vehicle on Saturday.
Saddam Trial Session Canceled
Judges have canceled plans to hold a hearing today in the case of Saddam Hussein’s trial on charges that he ordered the killing of 148 Shiite villagers, the chief prosecutor said.
