One killed in Iraq’s Erbil after vehicle explodes

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) -One person was killed and four were injured when a vehicle exploded in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil on Friday, the Kurdistan region’s counter-terrorism service said.

An explosive device attached to the bottom of the car detonated at around 1 p.m. (1000 GMT), killing the driver and injuring two women and two children who were in the car, it said in a statement.

The counter-terrorism service has opened an investigation into the incident, the statement added.

A Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, identified the driver who was killed as 41-year-old Hawkar Abdullah Rasoul and the two women injured as Rasoul’s wife and sister.

Rasoul was a colonel in the PUK counter-terrorism service, the official said.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which controls the Kurdish government in the capital Erbil, and the PUK, which dominates areas along the Iranian border and is headquartered in Sulaimaniya, are the two main parties ruling the Kurdish region.

(Reporting by Yomna Ehab in Cairo and Amina Ismail in Erbil, additional reporting by ALi Sultan in Sulaimaniya; Writing by Nadine Awadalla and Amina Ismail; Editing by Jon Boyle, Mark Heinrich and Barbara Lewis)