Al Qaeda in Iraq Suicide Car Bomber and Ground Attackers Try To Take Iraqi Police Headquarters In Kirkuk, 30 Dead

Damn.  A bloody start to Sunday in Iraq today as a group of al Qaeda in Iraq jihadis did their best to take control of a police headquarters in Kirkuk, Iraq - they started the whole thing by a suicide bomber setting off a HUGE car bomb and then the ground attack begun.  When the dust settled, there were 30 dead and 70 other wounded.  It's my guess that this death toll will probably surpass 50.

Al Qaeda in Iraq was ultimately unsuccessful in this attack but it was a huge blow to Iraqi security.

The story comes from DAWN.

At least 30 dead in attack on north Iraq police HQ: general

KIRKUK: A car bomb detonated by a suicide attacker followed by gunmen storming a police headquarters in the north Iraqi city of Kirkuk killed 30 people and wounded 70 others on Sunday, a police general said.

Militants had apparently sought to take control of the compound, but were unsuccessful, Brigadier General Natah Mohammed Sabr, the head of the city’s emergency services department, told AFP.

The deadly attack shattered a relative calm in recent days in Iraq, which has been grappling with a political crisis that has pitted Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki against his erstwhile government partners amid weeks of protests calling for him to resign.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack, but Sunni militants including al Qaeda’s front group in Iraq frequently target security forces and government targets in a bid to destabilise the country and push it back towards the sectarian bloodshed that blighted it from 2005 to 2008.