Breaking News: 50 Dead in Irbil Bombing, 100 Wounded
A man with high explosives on his person detonated his payload in the midst of a crowd of civilians lined up to apply for jobs as policemen in the northern, Kurdish city of Irbil. (Or it might have been a car bomb– reports are confused) Casualty counts are confused, but something close to 50 seem to be dead and around 100 wounded, overstretching the capability of local hospitals.
This attack is typical in targeting police recruits, in hopes of making it more difficult for the new government to establish law and order.
Its location is significant, however. The guerrillas are also attempting to foment ethnic violence, and among the aims of the attack today was surely to promote Kurdish-Arab hatred. (The Kurds do not need much pushing before they just secede, a move that would throw the country into new kinds of violence).
The other significance of the bombing is that the guerrillas clearly have access to a store of extremely powerful explosives. Many of the car bombs down south have only managed to kill one or two persons. Whatever the guerrilla in this operation was using was pretty sophisticated.
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