Car bombs kill at least five in Iraq

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, November 21, 2003

Car bombs kill at least five in Iraq

A suicide car bomber killed at least three people in an attack on Kurdish offices in northern Iraq Thursday, hours after a US-backed local council was hit by another blast.

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A suicide car bomber killed at least three people in an attack on Kurdish offices in northern Iraq Thursday, hours after a US-backed local council was hit by another blast.

A huge explosion rocked an area near the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in the city of Kirkuk. In the aftermath, black smoke rose from two wrecked cars.

"I am 100 per cent sure it was a suicide bombing," said police officer Shwan Majid Karim.

Hours earlier, a car bomb blast struck the offices of a US-appointed local council in the Iraqi town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad. Local officials said two people were killed and seven were wounded in what witnesses said was also a suicide attack.

"A car filled with explosives came fast. The driver blew himself up inside the car," a resident living nearby said.

The strike was one of a string of attacks on targets linked to the US-led occupation in the flashpoint town of Ramadi after dark on Wednesday.

The blast in Kirkuk, 250 kilometres north of Baghdad, flattened a wall around the headquarters of the PUK and shattered windows at a nearby primary school, wounding children with flying glass.

A US officer at the scene confirmed three people were killed plus the suicide bomber, but said the death toll was likely to rise.

The attacks came as US President George W. Bush prepared to face huge protests in London against the US war in Iraq, and a day after he issued a staunch defence of his military policy in a speech on the opening day of a state visit to Britain.

In his address, Bush vowed not to leave Iraq despite the rising death toll inflicted by insurgents.

Also Thursday, a former Iraqi general who claims to be part of the insurgency against US troops says the guerrilla war around this "Sunni Triangle" city is being waged by small groups fighting on their own without direction from Saddam Hussein or others.

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