* Car bomb in Kirkuk targeting police kills 10 * Unclear whether blast was caused by suicide bomber (Adds quotes) By Mustapha Mahmoud and Sherko Raouf KIRKUK, Iraq, April 15 (Reuters) - A car bomb that targeted police assigned to protect northern Iraq's oil industry killed 10 people and wounded 23 on Wednesday, police said, the latest high-profile bombing in the country. The casualties were piled into a police truck, and police travelling with the dead and wounded fired into the air to clear traffic on the road ahead, a Reuters witness said. "What did I do to deserve this? I was going home from work in a taxi ... there was a huge blast and I fell unconscious. I didn't wake up until I was in hospital covered in bandages," said Othman Sharif, who was wounded in the stomach and head. It was unclear how many of the casualties were police and how many civilian. "God will punish them," screamed a woman in Kirkuk General hospital whose son had been wounded in the attack. Police initially said the blast was caused by a suicide bomber, but some now say the attackers may have detonated an explosives-laden vehicle, targeting a bus carrying police in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad. The oil-rich city is hotly disputed by Arabs, and by Turkmen and ethnic Kurds who consider it their ancestral capital. Al Qaeda has exploited territorial disputes in north Iraq to remain effective even as violence has fallen elsewhere in the country. The Sunni Islamist group and other militants have also been able to hide in the remote rugged regions outside northern Iraq's cities. Iraq's oil industry is particularly sensitive to attack, given that the country derives almost all of its revenue from its vast crude reserves, the world's third largest. Oil infrastructure was not damaged in the blast. Most attacks in Iraq's north are focused on the city of Mosul, where a truck bomb on Friday killed two Iraqi policemen and five U.S. troops in the single deadliest incident for U.S. forces for over a year. A series of high-profile blasts and clashes between Shi'ite-led government forces and Sunni U.S.-backed anti-Qaeda militias in Baghdad during the same period have heightened tensions, which some analysts say could have political motives. The attacks came before a national election due in December and as provincial councils finalise new coalitions and pick new governors after local polls in January, which saw allies of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki make major gains on a law and order platform. (Writing by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Katie Nguyen)
Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, a leader of Iraq's national Awakening Movement, fires his rifle, during a celebration of his party's leading of Anbar's new council after local polls in January, in ...
