Kirkuk suicide blast kills cop, wounds 10

KIRKUK / IraqiNews.com: Eleven persons were killed or wounded in a suicide explosion that ripped through southwestern Kirkuk city, a local police chief said on Saturday. “This morning, a suicide bomber blew himself up near Kirkuk Police Academy in southwestern Kirkuk, killing a policeman and wounding 10 persons, including two emergency police personnel,” Brig. Sarhad Qadir told IraqiNews.com. Kirkuk, 250 km (156 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, sits on the ruins of a 5,000-year-old settlement. Because of the strategic geographical location of the city, Kirkuk was the battle ground for three empires, Assyria, Babylonia and Media which controlled the city at various times. Kirkuk is the centre of the northern Iraqi petroleum industry. It is a historically and ethnically mixed city populated by Assyrians, Kurds, Arabs and Iraqi Turkmen. The population was estimated at 1,200,000 in 2008. SS (P) 1