WORLD> Middle East
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WORLD> Middle East
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Suicide bomber kills 55 in packed Iraq restaurant
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-12 07:56
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. US 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. But ethnic competition is intense in Kirkuk and elsewhere in the volatile north, the most ethnically mixed part of the country.
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