Iraq: 33 Dead In Bomb Blast And Gun Attack

At least 33 people have been killed in a co-ordinated suicide car bombing and gun attack on a police base in northern Iraq.

A car bomb went off before two militants dressed in police uniforms and armed with guns, grenades and suicide vests stormed the compound in the city of Kirkuk, police said.

A further 90 people were injured in the the rush-hour attacks - shattering a relative calm in recent days in the war-torn country.

Police said there were still bodies trapped under the collapsed debris of buildings following the blast.

An injured man is stretchered away from the scene

The blast caused extensive damage to nearby buildings and vehicles.

The gunmen burst threw the main gates of the police base in the direction of the headquarters block.

They threw several grenades, but were killed before they could get there, witnesses said.

"I saw a vehicle stop at the checkpoint at the main entrance, and the police started checking it," said Kosrat Hassan Karim, who was nearby when the attack took place.

Rescue workers look for survivors among the debris

"Suddenly, a loud explosion happened, it was terrifying.

"I saw many people killed inside their cars."

No group immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday's attack.

Police said the dead including 12 employees at the government office. But a health official said only 16 bodies were at a hospital morgue.

Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city, is at the centre of a dispute over oil and land rights between Baghdad's central government and the autonomous northern Kurdish region.

Firefighters tackle a smouldering vehicle

The unresolved row is persistently cited by diplomats and officials as the biggest threat to Iraq's long-term stability.

Tensions between Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni factions in Iraq's power-sharing government have been on the rise this year.

Militants continue to carry out almost daily strikes, with at least one big attack a month.

Last month a suicide bomber disguised as a mourner killed at least 26 people at a funeral at a Shiite mosque in the nearby city of Tuz Khurmato.

Days earlier, a suicide bomber driving a truck killed 25 people in an attack on a political party headquarters in Kirkuk, which is 105 miles north of the capital Baghdad.

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