Police officer injured by bomb blast in Kirkuk

KIRKUK / IraqiNews.com: A police officer was wounded Monday in a bomb explosion in central Kirkuk, a source from the joint coordination center said. “The bomb exploded near a joint vehicle patrol of Kirkuk police and Asayesh forces in central Kirkuk, injuring an Asayesh lieutenant,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency, without giving further details. Asayesh or asayish (Kurdish for security) is a Kurdish organization, created in September 1993. It is referred to as an “intelligence agency”, Kurdistan’s intelligence agency, “security force”, “security service”, “security police”, “secret service”, “secret police”, or just “Kurdish police”. It is related to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. The oil-rich Kirkuk, a city of mixed Kurdish, Turkmen and Arab population, lies 280 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. SH (P) 4