Truck bombing kills 12 in Baghdad 03/08/2008 - 16:09:13
A truck bomb exploded during rush hour today on a busy commercial street in northern Baghdad, killing at least 12 people and wounding about two dozen, Iraqi police and health officials said.
The attack came as Kurdish leaders held intense negotiations with government officials aimed at defusing a crisis over Kurdish demands to incorporate the disputed city of Kirkuk and surrounding areas into their autonomous region, government officials said. The talks, attended by US and UN officials, were still under way and forced the postponement of a special parliamentary session over the dispute on Sunday, the officials said.
The debate over Kirkuk and its vast oil wealth has blocked passage of legislation providing for provincial elections this year, a major US goal aimed at reconciling Iraq’s rival ethnic and religious communities.
The United Nations has recommended postponing provincial elections in Tamim province, where Kirkuk is the capital, as a way of ensuring the balloting elsewhere in the country.
A senior parliamentary official said lawmakers were leaning toward approving the UN proposal, and would wait for a committee to submit its recommendations at the end of the year.
Sunni Arabs and Turkomen in Kirkuk are seeking international protection, the official said.
Underscoring the importance of the Kirkuk issue, US President George Bush telephoned the Sunni parliamentary speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani and Shiite Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi to urge a resolution, according to statements today from their offices.
“President Bush has been working with the Iraqis to encourage them to work out their differences and get the provincial elections law passed,” said Dana Perino, the White House press secretary.
“To that end, he spoke to several senior Iraqi officials yesterday as they near the end of the legislative process both to offer encouragement and stress the importance of getting the law through the final stages of the legislative process.”
As Kurdish officials and the government engaged in heated debate, health officials tended to the wounded after an explosives-packed small truck blew up some 200 yards away from a passport office in one of Baghdad’s Sunni Arab districts.
Police and health officials said 12 people were killed, including two women, and at least 23 others were wounded.
It was the first major bombing in Baghdad since last Monday, when three suicide bombers killed more than 30 people and wounded hundreds during a Shiite religious procession.
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