A Rudaw news hound at the scene reported that a roadside kaboom caused the police vehicle to explode while worshipers in Panja Ali were leaving mosques after Friday prayers. A number of people were maimed, and a Kurdish member of the emergency police named Karwan Osman Yasin died as a result of his injuries.
No one has grabbed credit for the attack, but Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(ISIS) sleeper cells have conducted similar attacks in the past.
Kirkuk province is a disputed territory claimed by both the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi Federal government.
After the Iraqi armed forces fled the advancing Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014 and Kurdish Peshmerga forces stepped in to defend Kirkuk,
... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time...
the city fell under the control of the KRG. Iraqi forces then drove the Peshmerga out of Kirkuk in October 2017 in the wake of the Kurdish independence referendum.
ISIS frequently takes advantage of the lack of cooperation between the Iraqi and Kurdish armed forces to launch attacks in Kirkuk.
Several people were maimed on November 30 after two explosions took place in downtown Kirkuk and in the countryside surrounding the city.
On November 11, five Italian soldiers were maimed in a roadside IED blast in Kirkuk while conducting counter-terrorism training for the Iraqi armed forces.
ISIS has increased its attacks in other disputed areas as well. The most recent attack was in Diyala province’s Kolajo (Golajo) sub-district on Wednesday, killing three Peshmerga fighters.