Deadly Attacks Rock Kirkuk Neighborhoods, Baghdad

KIRKUK, Kurdistan Region – Just days after a deadly attack on the Iraqi Intelligence headquarters in Kirkuk, another seven explosions rocked different neighborhoods in the multi-ethnic city, killing and wounding at least 10 people.

Also on Sunday, a series of car bombs and improvised explosives exploded in different neighborhood of Baghdad, killing at least 60 people and wounding more than 100, according to police and health officials.

In the Kirkuk attacks, sources told Rudaw that two of the explosions occurred in front of the house of an intelligence officer, without causing casualties.

Police sources said that another blast hit a civilian car in the Wasit neighborhood of southern Kirkuk, killing a child and wounding another person.

Two more bombs exploded inside an unfinished house in Kornish Street, where the roof collapsed and killed several workers who were living on the site, police sources said.

In the Domiz neighborhood, an improvised bomb caused material losses, but no casualties.

Last week, militants attacked and took control of the Iraqi Intelligence Headquarters in Kirkuk and the city’s Jawahir Mall. They killed 11 people and wounded 50 others, including security forces.

Iraqi government forces managed to overpower the attackers and clear the intelligence building and mall after several hours of intense clashes with the militants, who were from the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS), an al-Qaeda affiliate.

In a different incident, a hand grenade was hurled into the home of Kawez Parwez, a Kurdish journalist in Kirkuk working for Zagros TV, which belongs to the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Kirkuk.

"I was sitting at home when it happened and I was slightly hurt by smashed glass from a window,” Parwez told Rudaw by telephone.  "I don't have any personal feud or social issues with anyone," he added.

The attacks came only days after the murder of Kurdish journalist Kawa Garmiyani, the 32-year-old editor-in-chief of Rayalla magazine, who was shot dead in the town of Kalar in Iraqi Kurdistan on Thursday.

Garmiyani's killing drew numerous condemnations and protests by officials, the Kurdistan government, journalists and local and international human rights organizations.

The Syrian civil war, coupled with protests by the Sunnis in the provinces of Anbar, Kirkuk and Saladin since January this year have fueled the worsening security situation in Iraq. The Sunnis accuse Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki of marginalization, unfair treatment and launching a security campaign against them.