Twin bombs that appeared timed to lure policemen outside their fortified headquarters killed 17 people Thursday, most of them police officers, in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Kirkuk police Capt. Abdul Salam Zangana said 53 people were also wounded in the blasts, the second of which exploded as police officers rushed outside their protected compound to investigate the first one. Zangana, who oversees security units at the hospital where the dead and wounded were brought, said most of those killed were police officers, as AP reported. The double explosions heavily damaged the police headquarters in central Kirkuk, and charred cars were flipped on their roofs at the scene. Rescue workers frantically combed through the rubble to find victims. A third explosion about 45 minutes later and 500 meters away injured an additional eight people, Zangana said. That bomb targeted a police patrol near a mosque and on a road heading to a Kirkuk hospital.
