Kirkuk

BAGHDAD - More than 1,000 Sunni Arabs and Turkomen rallied yesterday against Kurdish demands to incorporate the oil-rich area around Kirkuk into their autonomous region, on the eve of a special session of Parliament aimed at defusing the crisis. The dispute 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. Protesters in the town of Hawija, west of Kirkuk, carried banners rejecting Kurdish demands for control of Kirkuk, said Brigadier General...

BAGHDAD - A string of deadly explosions and other attacks shook Iraq on Thursday, with bombings in Baghdad and the northern city of Kirkuk resulting in the most fatalities. Overall, nearly three dozen people were killed and more than 100 wounded, according to security officials. By the standards of Iraq - where attacks occur daily, although at a much diminished rate compared with the height of the war - the violence Thursday was not extraordinary. But it was a reminder that an organized insurgency remained active.

KIRKUK, Iraq -- A suicide bomber struck outside a bank as elderly men and women waited to cash their pension checks yesterday, killing 23 people and wounding nearly 100 in this oil-rich northern city that has become a flashpoint for sectarian tension. Elsewhere, five Iraqi soldiers were killed and two wounded in a suicide car bombing at a checkpoint in Kan'an, 30 miles north of Baghdad, and the bodies of 24 men -- apparently victims of recent ambushes -- were brought to a hospital in the capital.

BAGHDAD - The United States is abandoning plans to keep troops in Iraq past a year-end withdrawal deadline, the Associated Press has learned. The decision to pull out fully by January will effectively end more than eight years of US involvement in the Iraq war, despite ongoing concerns about its security forces and the potential for instability. The decision ends months of uncertainty by US officials over whether to stick to a Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline that was set in 2008 or to negotiate a new security agreement to ensure that gains made and more than 4,400 American military lives lost since...

BAGHDAD - Iraqi politicians are dueling with new hostility over the fate of Kirkuk, the oil-rich city that both self-ruled Kurds in the north and Iraq’s central government want to control. The dispute has caused a deadlock over an election law, threatening to delay Iraq’s nationwide parliamentary elections set for mid-January. Any vote setback could, in turn, disrupt American plans to withdraw troops from Iraq, scheduled to increase after the vote. “The problem is that we are getting to a crisis,’’ said Marina Ottoway, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based...

BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber killed at least 55 people yesterday in a packed restaurant near the northern city of Kirkuk where Kurdish officials and Arab tribal leaders were trying to reconcile their differences over control of the oil-rich region. The brazen attack - the deadliest in Iraq in six months - occurred at a time of rising tension between Kurds and Arabs over oil, political power, and Kirkuk. No group claimed responsibility for the attack at the upscale Abdullah restaurant, which was crowded with families celebrating the end of the...

BAGHDAD - A long-sought political consensus in Iraq over how to conduct crucial upcoming elections fell apart yesterday over the thorny issue of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, an Iraqi lawmaker said. The new snag came as an Al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility for the twin suicide bombings in the heart of Baghdad Sunday that killed at least 155 people. Many fear that the political deadlock over the new law will delay elections, now slated for January, and open the door to renewed violence in Iraq after it stepped back from the brink of...

BAGHDAD -- Thousands of Iraqi troops launched a crackdown in Kirkuk yesterday, ordering residents to stay in their homes in an effort to put down violence that has swelled in the north amid efforts to rein in bloodshed in Baghdad. Elsewhere in the north in the town of Tal Afar, a suicide bomber rammed a police checkpoint with a car packed with explosives, killing four policemen and 10 civilians. Some of them died when parts of nearby homes collapsed from the force of the blast . It was the deadliest attack in a day that saw 26 Iraqis killed around the country.

KIRKUK, Iraq - Sunni Arabs ended a yearlong political boycott yesterday in Kirkuk, the hub of Iraq's northern oil fields, under a cooperation pact that marked a bold attempt at unity before a planned referendum on control of the strategic region. The Sunni-Kurdish deal, urged by US diplomats, could also move ahead other reconciliation bids demanded by Washington but stalled by disputes that include sharing oil wealth and compromising with Sunnis who backed Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party.

BAGHDAD - Despite intense US pressure, Iraqi leaders failed yesterday to resolve differences over how to govern the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, a dispute that is blocking provincial elections and stoking tension in the volatile north. Also yesterday, a truck bomb exploded in a Sunni area of northern Baghdad, killing 12 people, wounding 23 and raising concern about a revival of sectarian conflict. Parliament had called a special session to try to reach agreement on a bill authorizing elections in all 18 Iraqi provinces - a move the United States...

BAGHDAD - Gunmen assassinated a senior finance ministry official and wounded a senior judge in Baghdad, while a roadside bomb in northern Iraq killed three people yesterday, officials said. Mohammed Ali al-Safi , a senior finance ministry official, died last night hours after assailants opened fire on his car in western Baghdad, police and hospital officials said. Additionally, officials said gunmen shot judge Munir Hadad in a hand during a drive-by shooting on a highway in central Baghdad in a failed assassination attempt.

BAGHDAD - Two explosions struck outside a bank in Tikrit yesterday, just as soldiers were lining up to cash their paychecks. The first report on casualties indicated that 12 people died and 28 were wounded, a local official said. The first blast was a car bomb, which exploded in a parking area adjacent to the bank. As people rushed to the scene, the second blast came when a man in military uniform detonated his explosives-laden vest. While the attack appeared to be aimed at the soldiers lining up at the bank, most of the casualties were civilians, according to...

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — A suicide bomber posing as a dairy deliveryman struck a Kurdish security headquarters yesterday, setting off a series of rapid-fire attacks against the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk that killed seven and wounded as many as 80 people. Within minutes, two more bombs exploded nearby, sending dark plumes of smoke into the clear sky and ending a six-month lull in violence in a city rife with simmering ethnic tensions 180 miles north of Baghdad. Kirkuk is divided between Kurds, Turkomen, and Sunni and Shi’ite Arabs, and...

BAGHDAD — A local governor in Iraq’s oil-rich north cut the electricity going to Baghdad from a power station in his province yesterday because his own constituents have been left with little power this winter. Governor Abdul-Rahman Mustafa of Tamim said residents in his province’s capital city of Kirkuk only have three hours of power each day. The failure of negotiations with Iraq’s Electricity Ministry to share the power generated at a plant in Taza, just south of Kirkuk, gave him little choice but to cut the electricity headed to...

BAGHDAD - While the deal Iraqi leaders reached over the weekend on a new election law may not be perfect, all major political groupings have said they will take part in the elections. That stands in stark contrast to Iraq’s first post-invasion parliamentary vote in January 2005, which Sunnis boycotted, helping to fuel anger and a spiraling insurgency that engulfed the country for two years. Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission sent a proposal to Iraq’s presidency council to hold national elections Jan. 21, five days after the previously scheduled date.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi politicians are dueling with new hostility over the fate of Kirkuk, the oil-rich city that both self-ruled Kurds in the north and Iraq’s central government want to control. The dispute has caused a deadlock over an election law, threatening to delay Iraq’s nationwide parliamentary elections set for mid-January. Any vote setback could, in turn, disrupt American plans to withdraw troops from Iraq, scheduled to increase after the vote. “The problem is that we are getting to a crisis,’’ said Marina Ottoway, director of the Middle East Program at the...

BAGHDAD - A suicide truck bomber who concealed his explosives under tanned animal hides struck a US patrol base yesterday in northern Iraq, killing one soldier and wounding 18 other Americans, US and Iraqi officials said. Two Iraqi contractors working at the base in Tamim province were also wounded, according to a brief statement from the military. Tamim has a mixed population of Arabs, Kurds, and Turkomen, with the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as its capital. Brigadier Sarhat Qadir, a senior officer in the Kirkuk police department, said the bomber targeted a US patrol base in a mostly Sunni Arab...

KIRKUK, Iraq -- Halal Abdul Khalaq lives in a mud and concrete hut behind a soccer stadium, waiting for a break in the violence to start building her dream. Three years ago she returned to a homeland she and her parents fled when she was only a baby. They were running decades ago from Saddam Hussein's persecution of the Kurds. Hundreds of other Kurds have joined Abdul Khalaq in the anxious but miserable wait to reclaim their past. Hussein's bid to turn oil-rich Kirkuk into an Arab city forced Kurds to flee by the tens of thousands during the...

BAGHDAD - A long-sought political consensus in Iraq over how to conduct crucial upcoming elections fell apart yesterday over the thorny issue of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, an Iraqi lawmaker said. The new snag came as an Al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility for the twin suicide bombings in the heart of Baghdad Sunday that killed at least 155 people. Many fear that the political deadlock over the new law will delay elections, now slated for January, and open the door to renewed violence in Iraq after it stepped back from the brink of civil war two years ago. ...

BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber killed at least six mourners at a funeral yesterday for a member of a prominent tribe with ties to both security forces and insurgents in western Iraq, a police official said. The bomber detonated an explosive belt inside a funeral tent in the mostly Sunni area of Haditha, about 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. At least 15 people were injured, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. The funeral was for a member of the al-Jaghaifa tribe, which is split between members of the police...