Bombing in Kurdish City In Northern Iraq Kills 60

BAGHDAD, May 4 -- A suicide bomber set off a massive explosion outside a police recruiting site in the Kurdish city of Irbil in northern Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 60 people and turning an orderly midmorning scene into mayhem. The blast left bloodied bodies strewn across a narrow street, witnesses and officials said, shattering a period of relative peace in the city.

Iraqi officials said a man carrying explosives under a traditional Kurdish outfit of a baggy blouse and trousers slipped into the line shortly after 9 a.m. and detonated his deadly cargo.

The Army of Ansar al-Sunna, a militant group with ties to al Qaeda, asserted responsibility for the blast in an Internet posting, but described the attack as a car bombing. The statement said the attack was staged to punish Kurdish security forces that have "bowed their heads to the Crusaders and raised their spears against the Muslims and fought alongside the Americans," the Associated Press reported.

Within seconds of the blast, dozens of the job-seekers were dead, some of their bodies unrecognizable. Scores more writhed in pain from burns or shrapnel gashes, witnesses said. As they screamed for help, blood pooled in the blackened street. Fear and chaos spread as ambulance sirens announced another disaster.

"We were shocked at the huge sound of the explosion," said Aso Ghafour, a security guard at a nearby hotel. "Immediately we went to see what happened and we found dozens of people running, covered in blood, and the street was full of pieces of flesh and body parts."

Hospital officials said 60 people had died and 71 were wounded. They said the toll could rise because many of those injured had suffered head wounds.

The attack was the deadliest in more than a year in the relatively peaceful Kurdish-populated north. In February 2004, suicide bombing attacks on the headquarters of two major Kurdish political parties in Irbil killed more than 100 people. The bombing Wednesday was the deadliest in the country since Feb. 28, when a suicide car bomber targeted police and National Guard recruits outside a medical clinic in Hilla, 60 miles south of Baghdad. That attack killed 125 and wounded 130.

[On Thursday, insurgents targeted two police patrols in western Baghdad, killing nine officers, and a man carrying explosives attacked an Iraqi army recruitment center in central Baghdad, killing at least 11 people, the Associated Press reported, citing police. Late Wednesday, a suicide car bomb attack at an Iraqi army checkpoint in Baghdad killed as many as 15 soldiers.]

The bombing in Irbil came one day after Iraq's first democratically elected government was sworn in. High-level talks continued Wednesday among Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish officials to choose a Sunni Arab to serve as defense minister. So far, they have been unable to reach an agreement.

A Kurdish official who spoke on condition of anonymity said members of Ansar al-Sunna include Kurdish and Arab Sunni Muslims. The same group was allegedly responsible for the twin bombings in Irbil last year, which he said were carried out by non-Iraqi Arabs.

The bombing occurred as job applicants lined up in response to advertisements on Kurdish television in recent days soliciting recruits for the police force.

At one of Irbil's three hospitals where relatives of the victims gathered, a 10-year-old girl said her father lost both his eyes in the blast. She said he wanted to join the police force because the salary was good. He had "promised me to bring me dolls and toys from the first salary he got," she said.

Mohsin Jarwa, a Sunni Arab lawmaker, called the attack "an inhuman operation, killing the sons of the land who were coming to protect Iraq. I don't believe those who carried this out were Iraqis," he said. "Iraqis don't kill Iraqis."

In unrelated incidents, U.S. military officials reported that two soldiers were killed when their vehicles were struck Tuesday by roadside bombs. They did not state where the attacks occurred.

Search teams recovered the body of a second American pilot missing since two Marine F/A-18 fighter jets vanished Monday night, U.S. officials in Baghdad said in a statement. One of the victims was identified as Maj. John C. Spahr, 42, of Cherry Hill, N.J.

The Iraqi government announced that a relative of ousted president Saddam Hussein was arrested this month for allegedly aiding the insurgency. Ayman Sabawi, son of Hussein's half brother, Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan, was apprehended north of Hussein's home town of Tikrit, it said. His father was detained by U.S. military forces in February.

Special correspondents Shereen Jerjes in Irbil and Naseer Nouri and Bassam Sebti in Baghdad contributed to this report.