Chris' Deployment Journal

Many of you probably heard about last week’s suicide bombing in town here that killed more than 20 and wounded nearly 80 Iraqis. According to the media (we are probably more in the dark than you are in regards to regional events), elderly people were standing in line at a bank, waiting to cash their checks when the bomb exploded. That bank is just a mile or so south of us and we drive by it on occasion (it’s now surrounded by Iraqi police), but mostly at night.

According to the reports we heard, a guy walked up pushing a pushcart that was nothing but a huge bomb filled with ball-bearings, essentially one giant Claymore mine (sort of like a giant shotgun, it sprays metal balls all over the blast radius). Our second platoon was the ‘Quick Reaction Force’ that day so they were one of the first responders to the grisly scene. My platoon was on guard duty so did not have to respond.

A Boston Globe article described the city as a ‘flashpoint.’ Kirkuk, while generally peaceful, really does have the potential to be a flashpoint because of the diversity of ethnic groups here, plus the fact that something like 40% of Iraq's oil is located in the region. The city is almost equally divided between Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen, with a smattering of other groups, including Asyrians. Recently the main Turkmen and Kurdish political parties, long at each other’s throats (at least rhetorically), decided to work together more, which is good news.