ARBIL, Iraq - A suicide bomber killed 32 people on Sunday when he ploughed his explosives-laden SUV into local administrative offices in the northern Iraqi town of Mahmur, officials said. Police said the bomber hit a compound housing Mahmur’s local administration and the offices of two Kurdish political parties.“All the dead are men, but there are women and children among the 115 wounded, and ten of those are grieviously wounded,” Kurdish regional health minister Zirian Abdel Rahman told reporters.
“We were holding a meeting in my office when there was an explosion outside, which smashed the windows,” said Abdel Rahman Bilaf, the mayor of Makhmur, which lies 300 kilometres (180 miles) north of Baghdad. Bilaf was speaking as he was treated for cuts to his face in a hospital in the city of Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
“A man in an army officer’s uniform driving a Chevrolet four-by-four pulled up and said he was expected at a meeting,” said wounded policeman Ziad Ibrahim. “We let him in and he drove to straight to the party offices and the car exploded,” he explained, also speaking from his hospital bed.
| Better operational security next time. Passes, call ahead, seach the vehicle even if you know the occupant, etc. Painful, painful lesson to learn. |
Makhmur is a mixed town on the border between the Kurdish region and IraqÂ’s Nineveh province. Abdel Rahman said that the compound was hosting a meeting of local officials when the attack took place. The local offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Kurdish leader Massud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani were hit, and many local officials were among the wounded, police said.
Kurdish parties and security forces have become a target of choice for Sunni Arab extremists, who accuse the minority population of collaborating with the US forces fighting the countryÂ’s insurgency.
| Well yeah, given the alternatives. |