Dozens Killed In Iraq Suicide Blast

Death Toll Nears 60 After Explosion At Restaurant In Northern Iraq

(AP)  A suicide bomber struck a crowded restaurant in northern Iraq on Thursday where Kurdish officials were meeting with Arab tribal leaders to discuss long-standing ethnic tensions, killing at least 55 people, police said.

It appeared to be the deadliest attack in Iraq in nearly six months.

Kirkuk, the center of Iraq's northern oil fields, has seen fewer attacks than other regions such as Baghdad but remains the focus of years of competition and political wrangling among ethnic groups with rival claims to the city.

Police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir, who gave the casualty figures, said the blast occurred in the Abdullah Restaurant just north of the contested oil city. He said 120 people were wounded and that the dead included five women and three children.

A Kurdish official said Arab tribal leaders were having lunch with members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party of President Jalal Talabani.

They were to attend a meeting with Talabani after the lunch to discuss ways to defuse tensions among Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen in the Kirkuk area.

The restaurant was also packed with families celebrating the final day of the Eid al-Adha religious holiday. It is affiliated with another Kirkuk restaurant of the same name, which was attacked by a car bomb in 2007 that killed six people and wounded 25.

A guard at the entrance said the blast occurred moments after a man parked his car and walked inside. The man was not searched because the guards had not been told to frisk customers, he said. The guard spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears for his own safety.

At the city's main hospital, family members wept and screamed in the blood-smeared corridors as doctors tried to save lives. Many of the victims were horrifically wounded and mangled bodies of the dead lay unattended on the emergency room floor.

Salam Abdullah, a 45-year-old Kurd, said he was having lunch with his wife when they saw shrapnel flying through the room.

"I held my wife and led her outside the place. As we were leaving, I saw dead bodies soaked with blood and huge destruction," he said. "We waited outside the restaurant for some minutes. Then an ambulance took us to the hospital."

Abdullah was hit in his head and left hand while his wife was wounded in her head and chest.

Awad al-Jubouri, 53, one of the tribal leaders at the luncheon, said he heard a huge explosion "and I felt that my chest was bleeding."

"I do not know how a group like al Qaeda claiming to be Islamic plans to attack and kill people on sacred days like Eid," he said. "We were only meeting to discuss our problems with the Kurds and trying to impose peace among Muslims in Kirkuk."

The Kurds want to annex Kirkuk and surrounding Tamim province into their self-ruled region in northern Iraq. Most Turkomen and Arabs want the province to remain under central government control, fearing the Kurds would discriminate against them.

Iraq's parliament exempted the Kirkuk area from next month's provincial elections because the different ethnic groups could not agree on how to share power there.

Iraq's constitution provides for a referendum to be held in Kirkuk to determine whether it would be annexed to the Kurdish regional administration. But the vote has been repeatedly postponed because of fears that the balloting would worsen ethnic tension.

Elsewhere, the U.S. military said Thursday that American troops launched raids in at least four Iraqi cities, detaining six people believed to be associated with al Qaeda in Iraq.

A U.S. statement said two men were detained Wednesday in a pair of raids near Tarmiyah, 30 miles north of Baghdad.

Two others were captured Thursday in Ramadi, capital of Anbar province west of Baghdad, the statement said. The two others were arrested Thursday - one in Mosul and the other in Baghdad, the U.S. said.

U.S. troops have broad authority under a U.N. mandate to apprehend people deemed a security threat and hold them indefinitely without charge.

However, the mandate expires at the end of this month and will be replaced by a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that requires the U.S. to obtain warrants to search houses or detain people except in active combat.

The new regulations will be part of a series of major changes in the five-year U.S.-led mission.

Britain announced Wednesday it will withdraw all but a handful of its 4,000 soldiers from Iraq next year. The U.S. is expected to shift a brigade to Basra in southern Iraq, where most of the British forces are located, to ensure the security of supply lines into the country from Kuwait.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has called for withdrawing all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by early 2010, shifting responsibility to the Iraqis for the defense of the country against Sunni and Shiite extremists.

[motown67usa]

Kirkuk has largely gone unreported. While violence is down up to 80-90% in most of the country, violence in that city has dropped only 28%. There has been little to no change in the number of attacks during 2008. In fact, per capita, Kirkuk has twice as many attacks as Baghdad. At the root of the problem is the ethnic division in the province. The Kurds hope to annex Kirkuk, while the Arabs and Turkomen are opposed. There was suppose to be a census and vote on the future of the city by the end of 2007, which was extended to June 08, but nothing has happened. The U.S. and U.N. are now hoping to have some sort of mediate compromise on its future, but there is little to no movement. Until there is, violence will continue there. For more see: http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2008/11/two-reports-on-trying-to-solve-kirkuk.html

[petro49l]

Baghdad should change its policy on military affairs. The nation needs a strong police force not soldiers, tanks, and missiles. Law enforcement requires strategies that capture Felons. Al Qada is a crime syndicate. A national police force would eliminate narcotics traffick. Without drug sales, Bin Laden has no source of revenue.

[ajaxtheleast]

In his last comment about the Iraq war

George allowed that there were two items that

deserved having the word "too" prefacing them,,,

"too" long and "too" expensive.

Evidently the number of mutilations and deaths

were either right on the bubble or they fell

below what George figured needed

defined by the word "too".

"GOT ME A GREAT IDEA,,,MY SON GEORGE HERE?,,
,,,OUR NEXT PRESIDENT?,,,,WHATTA YA THINK?

[liberalme]

Wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought we won whatever it is we were supposed to win over there---and when you win something, isn''t it "game over"?

Is it over? Did we win?

[downsteamjim]

noloyalista: I hope you do not allow your children to throw burning gasoline on policeman. Get a sheet and a cross and play with fire in your backyard.

[downsteamjim]

Pythoncharely: Do you realize that most people think murdering innocent people is wrong? There are probably Muslims who think spilling blood for fun is wrong. Get a life and stop agreeing with this type of behavior.

[noloyalisti]

Tell Obama and your Congress person to end this madness now! This is a huge tragic mistake and all we are doing is practice terrorism there. Time to stand up to the corporations who run the government and military. If they don''t stop we start GENERAL STRIKES. The people of Greece have it right.

[bailthisout]

- the fact that hopefully soon our US Military service members will be leaving makes myself believe that the Surge worked. Posted by BailThisOut at 11:45 AM : Dec 11, 2008

Even though very few of those benchmarks were actually met. Typical...
---------------------------------
Posted by ThinkHarder

You are correct, but I really do not care about the benchmarks being met. All that matters is that American Forces will be withdrawn from Iraq in the next couple of years.

[petro49l]

Hey freedomobama, put away your hashish. Al Qada Iraq has lost its war against America.

[petro49l]

Iraq does not need a military. The nation must develop a modern police state. Baghdad''s Enemies are within. Those who enter the country from Syria or Iran as militants assimilate into a crime syndicate. Tanks, rockets, and missiles are not very important. A good SWAT team in every district would eliminate Al Qada.

[freedomobama]

America has lost this war. We will never get all of terror out of this world.

[indivthinker]

No one said that the surge would end ALL violence in Iraq.....

Posted by indivthinker at 11:51 AM

Just Bush, Cheney, Gates, Rice, Rove, McCain, Limbaugh, Petraus, Palin, Tennet, etc....

Posted by earache4 at 11:54 AM : Dec 11, 2008

Give me one quote where any of these people said that ALL violence in Iraq was gone. You can''t find one, because they never said it. They only said that Iraq would stabilize itself and the security situation would get much better, which it has.

Accomplishments of the surge or events that occurred during the time of the surge:
1. Al Qaeda in Iraq''s leader al-Masri was killed
2. Al Qaeda in Iraq was pushed out of the Anbar province by the Sunni Awakening
3. Al Sadr''s militia forced to disassemble itself because it could not compete with the US or Iraq government
4. Sadr City secured by Iraqi forces
5. British were able to turn over Basra province to Iraq
6. Violence in Iraq reduced by 80%
7. Baath party allowed to participate in government again
8. Thousands of businesses were able to open again
9. Oil output the highest since Saddam''s fall
10. Government had surplus of billions of dollars because the working economy and oil prices

Get over your ego. We all know you spend your life coming up with ways to blame all of your problems on Bush. Stop taking your anger out on the soldiers who have performed superbly during the surge and made their country proud.

[thinkharder-]

Be happy for the American troops and the Iraqi people that there is only one major attack a week instead of a couple a day. The surge was the right thing to do, and even your savior Obama has admitted that it worked beyond everyone''''s wildest dreams.

Posted by indivthinker at 11:51 AM : Dec 11, 2008

We''ll see how well it worked after we leave. And it''s true...our money surge lining the pockets of Sunni leaders did a bang up job of lowering violence, but once we leave, chances are they''ll start at it again. At which time folks like you will say something akin to...SEE, WE NEVER SHOULD HAVE LEFT! At this point folks like me will say, that A LEVEL OF VIOLENCE THAT CAN ONLY BE MAINTAINED THROUGH BRIBERY AND A SHOW OF FORCE IS NOT A REMEDY...it''s only prolonging the inevitable.

[thinkharder-]

- the fact that hopefully soon our US Military service members will be leaving makes myslef believe that the Surge worked.

Posted by BailThisOut at 11:45 AM : Dec 11, 2008

Even though very few of those benchmarks were actually met. Typical...

[indivthinker]

So how exactly, is the surge working?

Posted by harbinger09 at 11:32 AM : Dec 11, 2008

No one said that the surge would end ALL violence in Iraq, but it has helped to drop violence by EIGHTY percent. Since security has stabilized in many parts of the country, the US has handed over control of security to the Iraq government in 13 of the 18 provinces, including the Anbar province, which was the former stronghold of the Islamic State in Iraq (Al Qaeda).

That is what the surge did. Stop your mockery and whining and get a life. Be happy for the American troops and the Iraqi people that there is only one major attack a week instead of a couple a day. The surge was the right thing to do, and even your savior Obama has admitted that it worked beyond everyone''s wildest dreams.

[bailthisout]

IMO the surge worked because now the US is planning for a withdrwal from Iraq. All along the administration talked about benchmarks being met before US Forces would leave. So no matter what your opinion on the surge - the fact that hopefully soon our US Military service members will be leaving makes myslef believe that the Surge worked.

[harbinger09]

Picture this--you are in a hovel and turn on the lights. Roaches are all over the counters-so you grab a can of raid and spray as many as you can reach before they run back into the walls. Then you smile, to yourself--turn off the lights and proclaim that the "aurge/raid" worked. Only to be surprised by more roaches when the lights are turned on again.

the fact is--any show of force will work in Iraq--until you remove or redirect it, then back the killers come. Because the sad truth is--we are fighting a hightech war that costs us hundreds of millions of dollars per day, they just have to hide out and wait--then come back in and bomb a few, then we start again--then they start again, then we start again. We cannot win a war that is fought in trickles, by demand. Because while we keep staying there--going ballz out and bankrupting our country, they just stop bombing for a while until we are caught off our guard. Their country. Their people. We are the invaders and occupiers. They can do this for centuries. Consider the ME wars with the UK and Israel--they have not been won--YET.

[harbinger09]

So how exactly, is the surge working?

[earache4]

So who will be the last to die for a lie?

Posted by earache4..not their sons & daughters
Posted by Hackerpc at 11:21 AM

Who''s sons and daughters? demslie2u2''s? I sure hope he doesn''t procreate.....

[bailthisout]

Glad to see some Americans still wish for the worst for our efforts in Iraq. Really must be a PATHETIC life to hope for the failure of others to bring their PATHETIC Life up a notch.