IRAQ: Suicide truck bomb 20 in Kurdish Mosul

Record ID: 356238

  • Title: IRAQ: Suicide truck bomb 20 in Kurdish Mosul
  • Date: 11th September 2009
  • Summary: PEOPLE CARRYING LUGGAGE
  • Embargoed: 26th September 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA9ABT22YHTCBTWPFJBP67YDWGC
  • Story Text: A suicide bomber drove a truck packed with explosives into a Kurdish village in north Iraq before dawn on Thursday (September 10), killing at least 21 villagers and wounding 27, Iraqi police said.
    The blast in the village of Wardek, about 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, seemed calculated to fan ethnic tensions between Kurds and Arabs, whose politicians are embroiled in a bitter dispute over claims to territory and oil.
    Women and children were among the dead and at least 25 houses in the village were damaged or destroyed, police said.
    Another truck bomber tried to set off a second blast but local Kurdish Peshmerga forces opened fire and killed him before he reached the village's outskirts, police said.
    Wardek is 30 km (18 miles) east of the volatile northern city of Mosul, in Nineveh province, where Sunni Arab insurgents such as al Qaeda and former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party are making a last stand after being driven out of their past strongholds in Baghdad and western Iraq.
    U.S. officials say insurgents are increasingly seeking ways to attack Kurds in ethnically mixed parts of northern Iraq in a bid to foment ethnic violence between them and Arabs at a time of rising tensions over land disputes.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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