KIRKUK, Iraq, 17 July 2007 — A suicide bomber detonated a truck wired with explosives near a Kurdish political party’s offices, followed by two other car bomb blasts, in the northern city of Kirkuk yesterday in a coordinated attack that killed more than 85 people and wounded more than 190, police said.

The attack was believed to be the deadliest in Kirkuk — a city of deep tensions between Kurds and Arabs — since the four-year Iraq conflict began. It came as Sunni insurgents are believed to be moving north, fleeing a US offensive around Baghdad and consolidating to carry out deadly bombings.

The massive explosion from the truck bomb at around noon blasted a 10-meter-deep crater and damaged part of the roof of the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. The main street outside the office was left strewn with blackened husks of two dozen cars, and at least 10 shops were damaged, as well as part of the fence of the nearby Kirkuk Castle, a historic fortress that is one of the city’s most prominent landmarks. The blast killed at least 80 people and wounded more than 183, according to police Brig. Burhan Tayeb Taha.

Twenty minutes later, a car bomb exploded about 700 meters away in the Haseer market, an outdoor souq frequented by Kurds, Kirkuk’s police chief Maj. Gen. Jamal Tahir told the Associated Press. The market was largely empty after the first attack, and the explosion caused only several injuries.

The third blast went off several hours later, when a car bomb exploded in the Domiz region of southern Kirkuk, killing a police officer and wounding six other policemen, Tahir said. Oil-rich Kirkuk, 290 kilometers north of Baghdad, is a center of tensions between Arabs and Kurds, who want to include the area in the autonomous Kurdish region of the north.

Violence in the city, though frequent, tends to be on a smaller scale of shootings, roadside bombs and kidnap-slayings. Yesterday’s blast came just over a week after one of the Iraq conflict’s deadliest suicide attacks hit a village about 80 kilometers south of Kirkuk, killing more than 160 people.

Iraqi officials have said Sunni insurgents are moving further north to carry out attacks, fleeing US offensives in and around Baghdad, including in the city of Baquba, a stronghold of extremists on the capital’s northwestern doorstep. The month-old sweeps, fueled by the “surge” of 28,000 new American troops sent to Iraq this year, aim to pacify the capital and boost the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki.

US troops launched a new offensive south of Baghdad yesterday, aimed at stopping weapons and fighters from moving into the capital, the military said in a statement. The statement did not say where the new sweep, codenamed Marne Avalanche, was taking place. Cut in recent days US commanders have said they plan new operations to cut off an insurgent supply route southwest of the city, running from western Anbar province. An offensive has been ongoing for the past month in a region southeast of Baghdad.

Violence appears to have eased in Baghdad in recent weeks — but attacks, including deadly car bombs, remain a daily occurrence. A string of attacks yesterday morning in the capital killed at least 19 people. In the deadliest, a roadside bomb exploded as an Iraqi army patrol passed in the Boub Al-Sham area on the city’s northeast outskirts, killing five soldiers and wounding nine others, an army officer said.

Two car bombs struck, one driven by a suicide bomber who struck a police checkpoint on a major road leading to a major Interior Ministry building inside the Green Zone. Five policemen were killed and 25 people wounded, a police official said. The other exploded in the central district of Karradah yesterday, exploding near Masbah Square, killing one person, wounding three others and leaving nearby shops burned, a police official said.

Also, a car bomb exploded in the garage of a man’s home in eastern Baghdad, killing his two daughters. The man told police he had been kidnapped in southern Baghdad the night before but was released, and when he returned home the car exploded, a police official said. Investigators found a timer in the car’s wreckage, the official said. Other deaths in Baghdad were caused by mortars, shootings and roadside bombs, according to police officials.