A bomb blast has wounded twenty people in northern Iraq, a spokesman for the party controlling the Kurdish region said Thursday, pointing a finger of blame at Islamist militants.
"The bomb went off Wednesday evening in Brosek public park in downtown Arbil," regional capital of the area controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), said the KDP's international relations chief Hoshyar Zebari.
"Twenty civilians were wounded. Their injuries were minor, except for a 12-year-old boy who sustained serious injuries," he told AFP.
"We have no hard evidence about who carried out this terrorist act and investigations are continuing. But to plant a bomb in a public park is pure terrorism," Zebari made clear.
"In the past, Islamist militants, or terrorists, have been responsible for this kind of explosion ... "But we also don't rule out the possibility that it was carried out by other quarters who have a vested interest in destabilizing the northern region," which has been off-limits to the Baghdad government since the end of the 1991 Gulf War, he added.
Zebari, whose faction shares control of the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said there had been no arrests in connection with Wednesday's explosion or two blasts on June 7 in Arbil province that left two people slightly wounded. (Albawaba.com)
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