Police chief targeted in Kirkuk attack

A roadside bomb exploded as a senior Kurdish police official was heading to work in Kirkuk today, killing one of his guards and wounding him, police said.

Major Ahmed al-Hamawandi, the head of police in the Kurdish district of Azadi in Kirkuk, suffered minor injuries in the attack that occurred at around 8.50am, said police Colonel Sarhat Qader.

Sectarian tension has been on the rise in Kirkuk, a city that sits on vast oil reserves, and Kurdish officials and police have been the frequent target of attacks by gunmen.

Under the previous Baathist regime, Saddam Hussein displaced many Kurds in the area, repopulating the region with Arabs as a way to mitigate possible threats to his power.