Blasts reported in Kirkuk

Two huge blasts which appeared to be artillery or mortar rounds shook the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk tonight.

Gunfire punctuated the night at the end of a second day of ethnic violence in which at least 10 people died.

There was no indication of who was shooting, but Turkomen and Kurds had battled after the Kurds reportedly damaged a newly-reopened Turkomen Muslim shrine in Tuz Kharmato on Friday.

There was no sign of American forces in Kirkuk tonight, but US soldiers were part of the violence in Tuz Kharmato, 110 miles north of Baghdad a day earlier.

They killed two Turkomen tribesmen and wounded two others after the Americans were fired on when they arrived to put down the outbreak of ethnic fighting, said Major Josslyn Aberle, 4th Infantry Division spokeswoman.

She said it was the first outbreak of ethnic conflict in the tense region since May.

Captain David Swenson of the 173 Airborne Brigade in Tuz Kharmato said tonight that several hundred Turkomen protesters had taken to the streets.

Swenson said three Turks and five Kurds were killed and 13 people were wounded in the Friday violence.

Today, the fighting spread to neighbouring Kirkuk, 140 miles north of Baghdad.

Kirkuk Mayor Abdul Rahman Mustafa, a Kurd, said two people were killed and several were wounded. He did not identify the victims’ by ethnicity.

According to Turkish media reports in Ankara, Turkey, hundreds of Turkomen, carrying blue Turkomen flags, marched on the governor’s office.

Two Turkomen were shot and killed and 11 wounded by Patriotic Union of Kurdistan forces.

Kurds and Turks have been embroiled in ethnic hatred for centuries and have killed each other in the thousands.