Agence France Presse

TIKRIT, 3 February 2004 — The US military said yesterday there was an “increased threat level” in northern Iraq following suicide bombings that caused carnage in the Kurdish city of Irbil, killing at least 67 people, up from an earlier estimate of 56.

“There is a proven increase in the threat level because of the nature of the attack in the north and the recent holiday,” said Master Sergeant Robert Cargie from the 4th Infantry Division based in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit.

The three-day Eid Al-Adha festival, began on Sunday for Iraq’s Sunni Muslims and yesterday for the country’s Shiite majority.

In Kirkuk, also under 4ID control, police chief Col. Turhan Yusef said “the US Army expects suicide bombings to hit” the northern oil center, 255 kilometers north of Baghdad.

Following US advice, police will strengthen protection around government buildings, hotels used by foreigners and political party offices, he told AFP.

Cargie did not know of a specific conversation, but said he was “sure there were conversations between senior army leadership and senior leadership in the Iraqi security forces across Iraq.”

Two men strapped with explosives blew themselves up on Sunday in offices of the main Kurdish political groups in Irbil, killing at least 65 people and injuring around 200.

No one claimed the attacks but the US-led coalition suspects Islamist extremists including Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network and Ansar Al-Islam, a radical group once based in the Kurdish regions.

Mourners paid their respects yesterday to the 65 dead from the twin suicide bombings.

Dressed in their finest for the Eid holiday, crowds collected outside the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) — targets of Sunday’s blasts.

Those who visited friends and relatives in Irbil’s hospitals said the death toll could rise, with many of the wounded in critical condition.

Shattered glass, crumbled concrete and twisted metal lay scattered around both locations — several kilometers apart but hit in apparently coordinated mid-morning strikes.

The attacks on auditoriums where people were celebrating the Eid were the worst in Iraq since last August, when 83 people were killed by a suicide bomber outside the Imam Ali mosque in the holy city of Najaf.

The bombers wired themselves with explosives, a technique usually associated with Palestinian militants opposing Israel and new to Iraq where insurgents have used car bombs.

“It is so devastating. Everyone is utterly stunned,” Dildar Said, a former adviser to the PUK’s prime minister who had several relatives killed or wounded in the attack, said. Mourners paid their respects yesterday to the 65 dead from the twin suicide bombings.

Dressed in their finest for the Eid holiday, crowds collected outside the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) — targets of Sunday’s blasts.

Those who visited friends and relatives in Arbil’s hospitals said the death toll could rise, with many of the wounded in critical condition. Shattered glass, crumbled concrete and twisted metal lay scattered around both locations — several kilometers apart but hit in apparently coordinated mid-morning strikes.

The attacks on auditoriums where people were celebrating the Eid were the worst in Iraq since last August, when 83 people were killed by a suicide bomber outside the Imam Ali mosque in the holy city of Najaf.

The bombers wired themselves with explosives, a technique usually associated with Palestinian militants opposing Israel and new to Iraq where insurgents have used car bombs.

“It is so devastating. Everyone is utterly stunned,” Dildar Said, a former adviser to the PUK’s prime minister who had several relatives killed or wounded in the attack, said. Peter Galbraith, a former US diplomat and expert on the Kurds who was in Arbil on Sunday, said the attack could strengthen the hand of Kurdish groups that want to break away from the rest of the country, threatening further chaos in Iraq.