BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber killed at least 55 people Thursday 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 four-day Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha. The U.S. blamed the blast on al-Qaida, which uses suicide bombings as its signature attack.
Police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir, who gave the casualty figures, said the dead included at least five women and three children. About 120 people were wounded.
It appeared, however, that the target was a reconciliation meeting between Arab tribal leaders and officials of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdish party of President Jalal Talabani, on ways to defuse tension among Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen in the Kirkuk area.
Kurds want to annex Kirkuk and surrounding Tamim province into their self-ruled region of 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.
A guard at the entrance said the blast occurred moments after a man parked his car and walked inside. He was not searched because the guards had not been told to frisk customers, the guard said.
At the city’s main hospital, family members wept and screamed in the blood-smeared corridors as doctors tried to save lives. Many victims were horrifically wounded, and mangled bodies 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. Abdullah was wounded in his head and left hand; his wife suffered head and chest injuries.
“I do not know how a group like al-Qaida claiming to be Islamic plans to attack and kill people on sacred days like Eid,” said Awad al-Jubouri, 53, one of the tribal leaders at the luncheon. “We were only meeting to discuss our problems with the Kurds and trying to impose peace among Muslims in Kirkuk.”
The attack was the deadliest in Iraq since June 7, when a car bomb killed 63 people in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad.
U.S. officials say attacks are down 80 percent nationwide since March, though major bombings still occur. A double truck bombing killed 17 people on Dec. 4 in the former Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah west of Baghdad.
It was unclear what effect Thursday’s attack would have on reconciliation efforts in Kirkuk, since the victims included both Arabs and Kurds. Mass attacks against civilians have prompted many Sunnis to turn against the insurgency.
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