Unknown female body found north of Kirkuk

KIRKUK / IraqiNews.com: Policemen on Wednesday found an unknown female body in north of Kirkuk, the chief of the local police said. “Police forces found a body of an unidentified woman in Siyosor region in Shiwan district, north of Kirkuk,” Brigadier Sarhad Qader told IraqiNews.com. “The body bore signs of five gunshot wounds,” he added. “This is the second female body found this week in Kirkuk,” Qader noted. 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