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Suicide bombers kill more than 50 at Kurdish offices in northern Iraq
Scheherezade Faramarzi - The Associated Press
Issue date: 2/2/04 Section: News
IRBIL, Iraq - Two suicide bombers with explosives wired to their bodies struck the offices of the country's two main Kurdish parties in nearly simultaneous attacks Sunday, killing at least 56 people and wounding more than 235 in the deadliest assault in Iraq in six months.
The attacks struck in the Kurdish heartland and took a heavy toll among senior leaders of Iraq's most pro-American ethnic group.
Elsewhere, an American soldier was killed, and 12 were wounded in a rocket attack on a logistics base in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, the
U.S. command said. The death raised the number of U.S. service members to 523 who have died since the Iraq conflict began in March.
The Irbil attackers slipped into the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan along with hundreds of well-wishers gathering for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice.
Kurdish television said both bombers were dressed as Muslim clerics.
Leaders of both parties, whose militias fought alongside U.S. soldiers during the invasion of Iraq last year, were receiving hundreds of visitors to mark the start of the four-day holiday when the blasts went off.
Guards said they did not search people because of the tradition of receiving guests during the holiday. Neither party's top leader - Jalal
Talabani of the PUK and Massoud Barzani of the KDP - was in Irbil when the attacks occurred.
Although Iraq has suffered numerous suicide bombings in recent months, the attack Sunday marked the first time perpetrators have worn explosives rather than using vehicles.
Sunday's blasts came a day after a car bomb outside a police station in the northern city of Mosul killed at least nine people. Hours later, a mortar attack hit a Baghdad neighborhood, killing five people and wounding four.
U.S. officials said foreign militants or Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaida-linked Islamic militant group based in the north that has frequently clashed with the Kurds, may have carried out the attacks. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
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