Violence in Iraq’s disputed northern oil province of Kirkuk killed five people on Monday, the latest in a string of attacks in the region, security officials said. The latest violence further raised tensions in Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed province that Kurdish leaders want to incorporate in their northern autonomous region despite opposition from its Arab and Turkmen communities, in a dispute US officials have long said is one of the biggest threats to Iraq’s stability.
A morning car bomb targeting the convoy of a police commander in Al-Rashad, south of Kirkuk city, killed two policemen and wounded 12 other people, an officer said. Major Ahmed al-Barzanji and four other policemen were among the wounded. On the road to Kirkuk from Tuz Khurmatu further south, a roadside bomb targeting a patrol in the early hours killed a captain and another soldier, said the town’s police chief, Colonel Ali Hamdani. Two more soldiers were wounded.
