photo: AFP

GRIEF overtakes a Kurdish woman during the funeral of two Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) officials, Tuesday 3 February, following the bloodiest joint- bombing attack in Iraq since Bush declared the end of hostilities last May.

The explosions, set five minutes apart, ripped through the respective headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the PUK in the Kurdish city of Arbil, just over 200 miles north of Baghdad, Sunday 1 February, where celebratory gatherings were hosted to mark the key Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha.

According to US military sources, over 100 people were killed, with scores more wounded.

Among the dead were Arbil Governor Akram Menten, the KDP party's number three, Sami Abdul- Rahman, and senior member Saad Abdullah, a KDP official said. Senior PUK official Shahwan Abbas was also killed.

Three days of mourning have been declared throughout Iraq. On Tuesday, thousands of Kurds joined funeral corteges in the northern city.

Most speculation places responsibility for Sunday's atrocities with radical Islamic groups. Others believe that neighbouring countries, fearful of an autonomous Kurdish province with a federal Iraq, may have been involved.

One high-ranking coalition official reasoned that the attack might alternatively have been retaliation for the capture of Hasan Guhl, a Pakistani Al-Qa'eda leader, on the northern border with Iran. KDP militiamen are thought to have played a role in his arrest.