1 Marine killed; Attack on PUK in Mosul, Police in Kirkuk leave 2 Iraqis dead

AFP reports:

' a US marine was killed in an attack during security operations in western Iraq on Friday, the US military said Saturday. ' . . .

' In the latest violence, an Iraqi police officer was shot dead early on Saturday at a checkpoint near Kirkuk while a local Turkmen community leader there survived an assassination attempt. In Mosul an Iraqi civilian was killed and four wounded in a mortar attack on the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), police said. Police, assisted by US troops, foiled a fresh bid to sabotage the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline that carries oil from northern Iraq to Turkey’s Mediterranean Sea terminal. A police officer said a 20-kilogramme bomb was defused after a tip-off from residents in Riyad just west of Kirkuk.

Al-Hayat reports that tensions are running high in Kirkuk, both between the two major Kurdish parties, and among them and the Arabs and Turkmen. The Arab members of the Kirkuk provincial council suspended their membership on Saturday in protest against the bad security situation in the city and the attempt of Kurds to marginalize Arabs and Turkmen.