Bomb in car kills 11

At least 45 people were wounded, and 25 shops were destroyed.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A car bomb killed 11 people Friday in a Kurdish district of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, police said, and a U.S. military helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing south of Baghdad.

The explosion in the Hurriya neighborhood of multi-ethnic Kirkuk wounded 45 people, destroyed 25 shops and set nine cars ablaze, said police Col. Sarhad Qadir.

The number of attacks has been increasing in the Kirkuk region, including a bombing in July in the town of Amerli that killed about 150 people.

Kirkuk is divided by ethnic tensions that pit Kurds against Arabs and Turkmen, who oppose the Kurds’ goal of annexing the oil-rich province to their semiautonomous region.

Market stall owner Salah Amin said he was closing his shop for Friday prayers when the blast threw him down, cutting his arms and legs.

He accused al-Qaida militants of coming from Diyala province to the south, where U.S. and Iraqi forces have taken back cities and towns from the radical movement in recent months.

The attack appeared to raise mistrust among the Kurds, as their leaders evoked past tragedies suffered by the minority under the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Emergency landing

Meanwhile, the military helicopter was forced to land in the town of Yousifiya, 20 miles southwest of Baghdad, although it was not clear if the aircraft had a technical problem, hit an electrical wire or came under fire. The area is rife with Sunni and Shiite militant activity. The military said that two personnel suffered minor injuries and that the incident was under investigation.

In the Shiite Muslim shrine city of Karbala, the representative of the country’s pre-eminent Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, took a veiled swipe at Sunni Arab politicians, hinting they were corrupt and supporting car bombings. It was the latest salvo by clerics against the faltering government, which now has had a walkout by 17 of 37 Cabinet members.