KIRKUK: A car bomb in Iraq’s ethnically divided northern oil hub of Kirkuk seriously wounded its police chief and killed his son on Friday, a police officer said.
The blast, which struck at around 1:45 pm (1045 GMT) in the city, 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Baghdad, also wounded another policeman and eight passersby.
"Kirkuk police chief Borhan Habib Tayeb was seriously wounded and his son, Lieutenant Wissam Borhan Habib, was killed … by a car bomb targeting their convoy in the south of the city," police Colonel Ghazi Mohammed Saleh said.
Kirkuk has a mixed population of Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen.
Longstanding Kurdish demands for the city to be incorporated into their autonomous region have fanned ethnic tensions.
US and Iraqi officials have warned of the dangers of an upsurge in violence as negotiations on forming a new governing coalition have dragged on, giving insurgent groups an opportunity to further destabilize the country.
More than four months after a March 7 general election which gave no single bloc an overall parliamentary majority, the two lists which won most seats are still bickering over who should be the next prime minister.
