URGENT / Official wounded in Kirkuk blast

KIRKUK / IraqiNews.com: A local official on Saturday was wounded in an explosive charge attack that ripped through western Kirkuk, a police chief said. “Today, an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated near a vehicle carrying the deputy director of Kirkuk’s Waqf (Endowments) department Mulla Mohammed Azad Khorshid in the western neighborhood of Tabba, wounding him, his wife and an escort,” Brig. Sarhad Qadir told IraqiNews.com. “Police forces sealed off the area of the blast and the wounded were taken to the hospital for treatment,” Brig. Qadir noted, adding that the explosion caused severe damage to the vehicle. 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 (S) 1