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56
Killed In Attacks On Iraq Kurdish Main Parties
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A
view of the damaged office of the PUK
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BAGHDAD,
February 2 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Two bombers killed
at least 56 people and wounded some 200 more as they were celebrating
the start of Eid Al-Adha holiday Sunday, February 1, in the normally
tranquil Iraqi Kurdish-dominated city of Arbil.
Meanwhile,
a spiral of attacks and blasts hit different parts in the occupied
country Sunday and Saturday, killing at least four U.S. soldiers and
scores of Iraqis, which also coincided with the visit of Deputy U.S.
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who arrived amid watertight
security.
The
twin attacks on the offices of the two main Kurdish parties, the
Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP), claimed the lives of senior Kurdish officials, notably
the autonomous region's deputy premier, Sami Abdul Rahman, reported
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
KDP also confirmed the death of ministers Shawkat Sheikh Yezdin and
Saad Abdullah. Arbil's governor Akram Mantak and his deputy Mahdi
Khofhnaw also died.
Several
senior PUK officials also perished, including politburo member Shahwan
Abbas.
There
was chaos in the city, 350 kilometers (220 miles) north of Baghdad,
with officials pleading for blood donors as steadily rising casualty
figures revealed the horrific extent of the damage.
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Some
of the victims rest in a local hospital (AFP)
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Brigadier
General Mark Kimmitt, deputy head of U.S. forces operations in Iraq
said what he called foreign fighters, from the Al-Qaeda network or
Ansar al-Islam could be to blame.
Speaking
on behalf of the U.S. administrator for Iraq Paul Bremer, senior
occupation spokesman Dan Senor condemned the bombings as "a
cowardly attack on innocent human beings" and pledged justice for
those responsible.
The
attack came amid rising tensions between northern Iraq's majority
Kurds and other groups over how much power they would have in a future
Iraq.
At
least five people were killed
and dozens more wounded in December 2003, when a protest by Arabs and
Turkmen against Kurdish bids to dominate the ethnically-split oil hub
of Kirkuk turned violent.
Kurdish
leaders Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani are pushing the council to
recognize their vision of a federalist state well before the approval
on March 1, 2004, of a Basic Law to govern Iraq during the transition
period through 2005.
Draft
legislation they have presented to Bremer would give Kurds near
autonomy in the three provinces of Arbil, Dohuk, As-Sulaymaniyah,
Nineveh and Diyala as well as Tamim province around Kirkuk.
The
move revived fears that the country could plunge into ethnic conflict,
as Iraqis Sunnis and other ethnic groups are
bitterly resentful of being marginalized in post-war Iraq.
The
PUK and KDP have controlled northern Iraq since 1991 with the support
of the United States.
More
U.S. Casualties
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A
crater left by Mosul blast
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On
another front, U.S. occupation troops continued to face daily
resistance attacks that killed four soldiers.
A
U.S. soldier was killed and 12 wounded in a rocket attack Sunday on a
logistics support base of the 4th Infantry Division in Balad, 50 miles
south of Tikrit, the Associated Press reported.
On
Saturday, January 31, an attack on a U.S. Army convoy traveling
between the Iraqi towns of Tikrit and Kirkuk killed three American
soldiers, Reuters news agency said.
Major
Josslyn Aberle said the attack involved soldiers from the 4th Infantry
Division and occurred southwest of Kirkuk.
The
deaths brought to 523 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in resistance
attacks and non-combat operations since the start of the Iraq war last
March, according to a Reuters count.
Separately,
around 20 people trying to loot an ammunitions dump in southwestern
Iraq were killed Sunday when the arms exploded, a Polish military
official said.
He
said the explosion occurred about 6:30 a.m., 110 miles southwest of
the town of Kerbala, adding that no occupation soldiers were injured.
Furthermore,
a car bomb exploded outside a police station in the northern Iraqi
city of Mosul on Saturday, killing at least nine people and wounding
44. No U.S. casualties were reported, Reuters said.
Wolfowitz
In Iraq Again
The
attacks came as Wolfowitz - a chief architect of the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq - arrived Sunday in Baghdad in his first visit since October
2003 when he survived an assassination
attempt when a rocket struck his hotel, Reuters news agency said.
Wolfowitz
arrived from Germany where he had been visiting U.S. servicemen due to
be deployed here in a major troop rotation that poses security
headaches for the American military.
He
called the rotation an "enormous undertaking" and said one
of his main purposes was to "visit with our commanders and troops
and get a sense of what they see (as) the situation on the
ground."
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