Car bomb leaves 25 casualties in Kirkuk

KIRKUK, Sept. 21 (Iraqi News) – A total of 25 civilians on Sunday were killed or wounded in a car bomb blast in southwestern Kirkuk city, a local police chief said. “Today, a car rigged with explosives detonated near Kirkuk Police Academy in the southwest of the city, killing two civilians and wounding 23 others,” Brig. Sarhad Qadir told IraqiNews.com – Voices of Iraq – (Iraqi News). Kirkuk, 250 km (156 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, sits on the ruins of a 5,000-year-old settlement. Because of the strategic geographical location of the city, Kirkuk was the battle ground for three empires, Assyria, Babylonia and Media which controlled the city at various times. Kirkuk is the centre of the northern Iraqi petroleum industry. It is a historically and ethnically mixed city populated by Assyrians, Kurds, Arabs and Iraqi Turkmen. The population was estimated at 1,200,000 in 2008.   SS (P) 1