Twin bombs kill 27 at police

Twin bombs that lured policemen out of their fortified headquarters in a northern Iraqi city killed 27 people yesterday, most of them serving officers.

Scores more were wounded in the double blasts in Kirkuk, and a third explosion 45 minutes later on a road to a city hospital brought the number of injured to at least 70, said health director Siddiq Omar.

The ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, claimed by Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen, is one of the more politically volatile parts of Iraq.

Kirkuk police Captain Abdul Salam Zangana said the first explosion around 9am was from a bomb stuck to a car in the police HQ parking lot, which sent policemen rushing outside to investigate, right into the second blast. The double blasts killed 27 people, and wounded more than 62, he said. It also blew out the windows of the police HQ, where officials frantically tried to evacuate workers.

The third bomb, planted on a road, set cars and trucks ablaze when it exploded about 550 yards away, targeting a police patrol near a mosque.