Some 40 people were killed or wounded in blasts of four booby-trapped cars that went off within minutes in the northern oil city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, a security source said. The source said a car driven by a man blew up at 7:35 a.m. in the district of Al-Tiseen, targeting residence of the police chief Torhan Mohammed, who was not hurt. But four people were wounded in the explosion. A second car laden with explosives went off five minutes later in the same region, killing a whole four-member family, wounding three people and damaging nearby stores and houses.Another car blew up at 8:10 a.m. near Al-Shuhaa causeway killing up to 22 civilians, and another one exploded near a house for special cases killing two people and wounding two others, according to the security source.
Earlier today, a suicide attacker wearing a belt loaded with explosives blew himself up in an office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in the district of Al-Nasr, killing two people and wounding four others. Another suicide attacker attempted to ram his bomb-laden car into a building of the same party in the neighborhood of Al-Wasti but the guards shot him dead, and defused the bomb safely.