By Prensa Latina,
Baghdad : At least 15 national civilians and one US soldier have been killed Sunday in clashes in Iraq, where the detention of hundreds of people and massive protests have generated tension in the northern city of Kirkuk.
The Iraqi police reported the blast of a car bomb near the passports department in the capital’s northern zone, killing 12 people and wounded 22, most of them in critical conditions.
According to Qassem Ata, spokesman of the Operations Command in Baghdad, the attack also damaged six cars and several neighboring stores.
A release from the US army confirmed the death of a civil servant, the first casualty in August, due to a road accident in the capital’s northern area, an incident in which another US people was injured.
Similar stages have been also registered today in the north-eastern province of Diyala, where Iraqi police and soldiers detachments detained 18 people in virtue of the denominated Bashaer al-Kheir operation.
A tension atmosphere have been parallel reported in the oil city of Kirkuk, province of Tamim, after protests by thousands of Sunni Arabs in west Hawija against Kurdish demands to join that city to the autonomous region.
The dispute to Kirkuk and its enormous oil companies have paralyzed a law to carry out provincial elections, which have been approved by the parliament last month, but vetoed by Kurdish-born President Jalal Talabani.