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Suicide bombing wounds 19 at Iraq ballot warehouse
KIRKUK, Iraq, July 1, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A suicide bombing Sunday targeting a
warehouse in Kirkuk where ballot boxes from Iraq’s May elections were stored
wounded 19 people, days before a vote recount, a security source said.
“Nine policemen, six members of a counter-terrorist unit and four
civilians were wounded when a car bomb driven by a suicide bomber exploded at
the main gate of the warehouse,” the source said.
The building was damaged by the blast but the ballot boxes were
unaffected, said Rakan al-Juburi, the governor of Kirkuk north of Baghdad.
Iraq’s supreme court has ordered a manual vote recount in polling stations
where results from the May legislative elections were contested following
allegations of fraud.
The ballot was won by populist Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr’s electoral
alliance with Communists, as long-time political figures were pushed out by
voters seeking change in a country mired in conflict and corruption.
The vote recount is expected to begin on Tuesday in the Kurdish provinces
of Arbil, Sulaymaniyah and Dohuk, as well as in Kirkuk, Nineveh, Salaheddin
and Anbar, the spokesman of the electoral commission said on Saturday.
BSS/AFP/GMR/1343 hrs