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Monday, July 16th, 2007

Haroon Siddique and agencies
Monday July 16, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

A man passes the scene of a bomb attack in Kirkuk, Iraq. Photograph: Slahaldeen Rasheed/Reuters

At least 80 people were killed in two coordinated attacks in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk today, police said.A further 136 were wounded as a car bomb exploded on a busy street at around noon (9am BST) and then 20 minutes later a suicide bomber drove into the crowded Haseer market, about 700 metres away.

Tensions between Kurds and Arabs in Kirkuk have been high, and both blasts occurred near an office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the party of the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani.

The first explosion collapsed part of the roof of the PUK office and left a 10-metre crater in the pavement.

A Reuters cameraman on the scene said the second explosion scattered bodies across the market, set dozens of cars on fire and trapped passengers on a bus.

The car bomb exploded in a commercial area called Iskan, near shops and a bus garage, police said. They said the death toll was “very, very likely” to rise.

Iraqi officials have said Sunni insurgents are moving further north to carry out attacks, fleeing US offensives in and around Baghdad.

South of the Iraqi capital, helicopter-borne troops this morning swept into an area that the US military said was an al-Qaida safe haven around the Euphrates river valley, 35km from Baghdad.

The terrain, criss-crossed with an extensive canal system, has been the location of fierce fighting between US forces and militants in the past and at least one air strike was called in during the early hours of the operation, a military spokeswoman said.

US and Iraqi forces have launched a series of security clampdowns since the last of 28,000 extra US troops sent to the country by President George Bush arrived a month ago.

They aim to thwart violence between the majority Shi’ites and minority Sunni Arabs that has pushed the country towards full-scale civil war, and win time for the Shi’ite prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, to deliver key power-sharing laws.

But many Americans are now pressing for their soldiers to come home soon, and senior members of Mr Bush’s own Republican party have broken ranks to call for a change in the war strategy.

However, Mr Bush has refused to alter course ahead of a September review from General David Petraeus and the US ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, his top two personnel in Iraq.

See More:Iraq 

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