ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle among a crowd of Iraqi traffic police recruits in the northern Kurdish city of Arbil on Monday, killing at least 10 and wounding more than 100, local officials said.
A spokesman for Arbil’s city council said the death toll could rise as many of the wounded were in serious condition. Saman Halabjayi, spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Arbil said 106 were wounded, 10 of them seriously.
An Iraqi police witness said the bomber raced a red Toyota vehicle from a nearby building site onto a soccer field where more than 200 recruits had gathered early in the morning for training.
Security forces opened fire on the car, but could not stop it and it headed towards the crowd.
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"Some people were running away but others couldn’t move and the car blew up among them," said Raeder Mohammed, one of the trainees. "There are still body parts burning," he said.
Arbil, one of the main cities in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq, has been relatively peaceful over the past two years apart from occasional spectacular suicide attacks.
