Kirkuk blast casualties up to 17

KIRKUK / IraqiNews.com: Casualties from the car bomb explosion that ripped through downtown Kirkuk city earlier today have reached 17, a local security source said on Tuesday. “The toll from the car bomb blast that occurred near the engineering faculty in central Kirkuk has reached 11 dead and six wounded persons,” the source told IraqiNews.com news agency. Earlier today, the commander of the second regiment in Kirkuk province, Maj. Najm Faroun al-Obeidi, said that a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb targeting an emergency police patrol vehicle near the engineering faculty in downtown Kirkuk city, killing six patrolmen and wounding four others, according to an initial count. Kirkuk, an oil-rich and mixed city of Kurds, Turkmen, Christians and Arabs, lies 250 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. SS (P) 1