Blast mars Iraq takeover
Car bombing kills at least 33, injures scores in Kirkuk market
BAGHDAD – Only hours after Iraqi troops had paraded in celebration of taking control of their cities from U.S. troops, militants mounted their first challenge to Iraq’s new era with a car bombing Tuesday that claimed the lives of at least 33 people and wounded 97 others in Kirkuk.
The bloodshed in the northern Iraq city that sits atop lucrative oil reserves and is the prize in an Arab-Kurdish power competition raised doubts about whether Iraqis could fill the security vacuum after the American departure.
The parked car exploded at a vegetable market in Shorja, a Kurdish section of Kirkuk, according to police and medical sources who provided the casualty figures.
The attack followed last week’s suicide truck bombing that killed nearly 80 people in Taza Khurmatu, a Shiite Turkmen town just south of Kirkuk. Both blasts pointed to an effort to fan ethnic tensions in an oil-rich area that Kurds wish to claim as part of their self-governing region in northern Iraq and Arabs want tied to the central government in Baghdad.
The blast marred a day that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had hailed as a historic victory and a milestone on the way to the withdrawal of all U.S. forces by the end of 2011. President Barack Obama says he wants all combat troops home from Iraq by the end of August 2010.
The government staged holiday military marches across Iraq as its forces took over responsibility from the U.S. forces, who primarily have been relegated to bases on the periphery of cities or to rural areas, only to be called upon when summoned by the Iraqi government and its commanders. A U.S.-Iraq security agreement, signed at the end of last year, had called for all American combat troops to be out of population centers by June 30.
“This day, which we consider a national celebration, is an achievement made by all Iraqis,” al-Maliki told the nation in an address on state television.
“Our incomplete sovereignty and the presence of foreign troops is the most serious legacy we have inherited (from former leader Saddam Hussein). Those who think that Iraqis are unable to defend their country are committing a fatal mistake.”
In Kirkuk, the market attack appeared to undermine such confidence. The blast gutted more than 40 stores, reducing at least a dozen establishments to rubble.
Azad Khudur, a 33-year-old shopper, stood at the market’s entrance, near a few burning cars.
“The bombing is a message to the Iraqi people that the terrorists are able to attack at any time and at any hour because of the weakness of security forces,” he said.