wounding 200 others in near-simultaneous attacks that shook the offices of two Iraqi Kurdish political parties, American and Kurdish officials said.
Witnesses said the attackers blew themselves up after making their way through checkpoints outside the party offices, where dozens of people had gathered to celebrate the start of the Muslim Eid al-Adha festival, or feast of the sacrifice.
The blasts in Arbil, 350 kilometers (about 220 miles) north of Baghdad, came a day after 18 people died in attacks, including a car bomb explosion in Mosul, build on ruines of Nineveh where the Bible claims Prophet Jonah brought a message of repentance.
MUSLIM MILITANTS
Human rights watchers and U.S. officials have linked the attacks to Muslim militants, including remnants of the old regime and members of terrorist organizations from neighboring countries.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurd, described Sunday’s violence as "an attack by terrorists, al Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam," a group involved in attacks against coalition forces and minority Christians.
"Ansar al-Islam ("Supporters of Islam" in Kurdistan) is one of a number of Sunni Islamist groups based in the Kurdish-controlled northern provinces of Iraq," said Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international human rights organization.
ISLAMIC DECREES
"Espousing an ultra-orthodox Islamic ideology…the group’s leaders issued decrees imposing their strict interpretation of Islam on the local inhabitants and introducing harsh punishments for those who failed to comply with their decrees," HRW said.
Since its establishment, the group’s armed fighters have reportedly engaged in intermittent clashes with the forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), in whose stronghold Biyara and Tawela are located.
Other human rights watchers have told ANS that Muslim militants have killed Christians, while forcing Christian women to wear veils in several areas of Iraq.
WOLFOWITZ ARRIVES
The violence came as United States Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz visits Iraq to meet with troops and assess the fragile security situation, which has put both Americans and Iraq’s Christian minority on edge.
Underscoring security concerns were reports that about 20 people died in a blast as they tried to loot a munition depot in a desert area 180 kilometers (110 miles) southwest of Karbala Sunday.
The French News Agency (AFP) said the depot was previously used by the army of deposed president Saddam Hussein and comprised about 100 buildings under the guard of 80 Polish soldiers. Munitions dumps across Iraq are regularly targeted by looters who dismantle the weapons to recycle brass casings and explosive contents.
DEFENDING WAR
Despite the tensions, Wolfowitz, who is widely seen as one of the main architects of the U.S.-led war, defended the American led mission. And the Voice of America (VOA) network quoted him as saying that recent revelations of flawed intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction "do not mean the war was not necessary."
The United States and Britain cited Iraq’s possession of such weapons as a main reason for going to war. Yet, so far no weapons of mass destruction have been found.
Former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay has said he does not believe Iraq had such weapons prior to the start of last year’s war and has accused intelligence agencies of getting it wrong, VOA reported.
