Twenty-five people were wounded on Saturday when three car bombs exploded outside the homes of officials of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, police said.

"At about 6 am (0300 GMT) three booby-trapped cars exploded simultaneously outside the homes of three officials of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in north Kirkuk, wounding 25 people," said Brigadier General Adel Zeinalabedine, a senior police commander in the city.

The PUK, a Kurdish former rebel movement, is led by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

The multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk, 240 kilometres (150 miles) north of Baghdad, lies at the heart of an oil-rich province which is at the centre of a dispute between Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds.

In other violence on Saturday, twin mortar attacks, targeting Baghdad's Abu Nawas neighbourhood and the fortified Green Zone which houses many embassies and government institutions in the capital, wounded two people. Both casualties were in Abu Nawas.

earlier related report

France to treat 30 Iraqis wounded in Baghdad church assault
Beirut (AFP) Nov 6, 2010 –

About 30 Iraqi Christians wounded in a deadly Al-Qaeda hostage crisis at a Baghdad church are to be flown to France for treatment, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Saturday.

"A French plane will fly around 30 Iraqis wounded in the attack on the church in Baghdad to France by Monday for treatment," Kouchner told reporters in Beirut, where he was on a two-day official visit.

At least 46 hostages, including two priests, were killed on October 31 in a raid by Iraqi security forces to end the hostage-taking by Al-Qaeda gunmen in a Syriac Catholic cathedral during Sunday mass.

Al-Qaeda has declared Christians everywhere "legitimate targets" in the wake of the bloodbath at the Baghdad church.

Around 800,000 Christians lived in Iraq prior to the US-led invasion of 2003 but that number has since shrunk to around 500,000 in the face of repeated attacks against their community and churches.

Christians in Baghdad have now dwindled to around 150,000, a third of their former population in the capital. The 14 Chaldean churches still in use in the capital are half the number of seven years ago.

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