Blast kills scores in northern Iraq

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

refid:10551523 ilişkili resim dosyası

Women and children were among the victims of the attack on the "Abdullah" restaurant, which is located on the main road to Irbil and is popular with Kurdish officials traveling to and from the Kurdish self-ruled region.

Police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir, who gave the casualty figures, told The Associated Press that the blast occurred in the Abdullah Restaurant just north of the contested oil city of Kirkuk. A Kurdish official said Arab tribal leaders were having lunch with members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party of President Jalal Talabani.

Defusing tensions
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.

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. "More and more victims are arriving," Doctor Mohammed Abdallah told Agence France-Presse. At the restaurant, victims were lying on the ground with blood on their faces, an AFP journalist said. Kirkuk, the center of Iraq's northern oil fields, has been the scene of long-standing ethnic tension. Attacks have continued regularly, although the number of violent incidents in Iraq has dropped sharply this year.