Civilian injured by bomb blast in southern Kirkuk

KIRKUK / IraqiNews.com: A civilian was wounded on Friday in a bomb explosion targeting a police vehicle patrol in southern Kirkuk , a police source said. “An explosive charge went off targeting a police vehicle patrol at the end of the al-Rabeaa bridge in southern Kirkuk , injuring a passing civilian,” the source told IraqiNews.com. Meanwhile, the chief of local police said “police forces found a weapons depot in south of Kirkuk .” “The forces found the depot during a security raid waged in Darmagar village in Daqooq district, south of Kirkuk ,” Brigadier Sarhad Qader, noting that it contains two Katyusha rockets and three bombs. 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. SH (P) 1