BAGHDAD — Three women wrapped in explosives killed dozens in Iraq on Monday, shaking the country as chaos and ethnic violence erupted in the volatile northern city of Kirkuk, where tensions had already run high between majority Kurds and ethnic Turkmens.
All told, at least 61 people were killed and 238 wounded, nearly all of them Kurdish political protesters in Kirkuk and Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad. It was one of the bloodiest days in a year in which violence has dropped strikingly.
The violence in Kirkuk, with its delicate ethnic and sectarian makeup perched atop great oil reserves, deeply unnerved government and security officials, who instituted curfews there and in Baghdad. Leaders of the Turkmen ethnic group, in competition for land and political power with the Kurds, called for protection by United Nations security forces.
The attacks also underscored that the raw passions and anger fed by Iraq’s deep ethnic, regional and sectarian divides can still instantly ignite. Concerns about stability ran so high that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki ordered a battalion of Iraqi troops to reinforce Kirkuk and put other unspecified “emergency reserve” troops on alert in case the violence spread, state-run television reported late Monday.
The city was already on edge when thousands of Kurds poured into an area near the provincial headquarters on Monday morning, to protest legislation in Baghdad that would dilute the Kurds’ dominance in the city.
Then, just after 11 a.m., a suicide bomber blew herself up, killing at least 17 demonstrators and wounding 47 others, according to Iraqi security officials.
No one claimed responsibility for the bombing, which bore the hallmarks of Sunni Arab extremists. Nonetheless, many in the crowd blamed Turkmen extremists for the attack, and within minutes a mob of enraged Kurds began attacking Turkmen political offices and setting their buildings ablaze.
“They burned Turkmen buildings and they burned many cars,” said Brig. Burhan Taha of the Kirkuk police.
Gunfire and rocks from the mob wounded at least 25 Turkmen guards, according to the Kirkuk police. The guards — some armed with machine guns — returned fire, killing at least 12 Kurds in the mob. An additional 102 people were wounded in the melee that followed the bombing, the police said, though it was not clear how many were shot by Turkmen guards or wounded by other violence.
Another senior Kirkuk police commander, Brig. Sarhad Qadir, said the mob that attacked the Turkmens included members of the Asaish, a Kurdish security force, who were not in uniform but were carrying weapons.
“The Asaish and the Kurdish protesters attacked the Turkmen buildings,” Brigadier Qadir said. The Turkmen guards fought back with Kalashnikov automatic rifles and heavier machine guns, and the fighting lasted more than an hour, he said.
One element fueling the Kurds’ rampage was the widespread belief that Turkmens had fired on Kurdish demonstrators dashing away from the bomb blast.
The explosion sent “body parts flying into the air,” said Benjamin Lowy, an American photojournalist who was within a block of the attack. “Then the mob started stampeding, and within moments someone started shooting into the crowd, and the bullets were flying past me.”
The gunfire clearly appeared to have been aimed directly into the crowd, and not into the air such as in an effort to disperse rioters, Mr. Lowy said. One victim at the hospital, a 15-year-old boy, died from a bullet fired directly into his chest. Long after the bombing there was “tons of shooting in the rest of the city,” he said, as rumors continued to sweep the populace that Turkmens had been behind the attack.
Farouk Abdullah, a senior Turkmen politician, said that offices of every Turkmen party had been attacked and that Kurdish rioters had destroyed a number of other Turkmen buildings. “We don’t know why they attacked us,” he said. “We did not have anything to do with the explosion.”
By the end of the day, the riot and violence by Kurds against Turkmens had become one of the most severe ethnic skirmishes in Kirkuk since the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The city has long been considered a tinderbox because of its volatile mix of Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs .
Even five years after the invasion, the deeply bitter and unresolved feelings among the rival ethnic groups remain close to the surface, and are the root of a legislative battle in Baghdad over an election law that may block Iraq from holding its first provincial elections in more than three years.
After the Kurds sacked the Turkmen offices, the head of the Turkmen Front, Saadeddin Arkej, stormed out of negotiations in Baghdad to resolve the legislative dispute.
“I can’t practice democracy at the Parliament while the dictatorship is attacking and burning the headquarters of the Turkmen Front in Kirkuk and burning and looting other Turkmen establishments,” he said.
Worried that Kirkuk remained dangerously unstable, the provincial governor called on Monday afternoon for a brigade of Iraqi troops to be sent to the city, while the Turkmen members of the provincial council issued a statement asking the United Nations to send peacekeeping forces.
Even before the skirmish in Kirkuk, the bomb attacks in Baghdad were a blow to Mr. Maliki’s government, which has made protecting Shiite pilgrims a point of honor this week, deploying thousands of Iraqi troops around the city, setting up checkpoints and closing roads.
Mr. Maliki is negotiating a new security agreement with the United States, and a central point is the ability of Iraqi forces to take over security.
The Baghdad attacks began just before 8 a.m. when two women used suicide vests and a third a bomb in a bag to unleash strikes just minutes apart, killing 32 people, all apparently Shiite pilgrims marching in a festival, according to the police and hospital officials. The dead included at least four children, one of them an infant. At least 64 people were wounded, according to police officials and witnesses.
One woman, walking amid the crowd close to the National Theater building, blew herself up, killing 10 and wounding 15 others, said an Iraqi Army officer who said he had he lifted a baby into an ambulance. Flip-flops and slippers of the dead were gathered into a pile.
Police officers interviewed at the scene said that the authorities had heard that six women would blow themselves up in the area. “We can’t search women,” complained Atheer Allawi, a police officer. “They are wearing abayas, and God knows what they can hide under them.”
A second attack occurred inside a tent that provided shade and rest for women taking part in the march. The bomber walked into the tent, sat down and, according to a police official, Abu Ali, read the Koran with the women sitting inside. She exited the tent, leaving a bag behind that exploded moments later, killing one and wounding four.
A third bomb struck between traffic police checkpoints, killing at least 13 and wounding 15. Nails embedded in the attacker’s suicide vest were strewn about the asphalt. “This was part of her belt,” said an Iraqi police lieutenant, nudging a bent nail with the toe of his shoe. He said she was thought to be the leader of the group.
The violence did not deter the marchers, who continued down one of Baghdad’s main thoroughfares, waving green flags, and with Shiite religious songs blaring from loudspeakers.
The procession headed toward a sacred shrine named for the Shiite saint Imam Kadhim, whose death the marchers were commemorating.
Still, the bombings in Baghdad felt different than in the past, more violent days of the war, and Iraqis were quick to point out the change.
“The government has taken security into its own hands,” said Abu Haidar al-Darajii, a karate coach from Karada handing out water and juice to marchers. “Iraqi people have realized that these things will not end unless they help the government. That’s the beginning of the end of the war.”