An unofficial Twitter account attributed to Jabhat al-Nusra tweeted, "ISIS: four car bombs shake Arbil; north Iraq; response to what they're doing in ash-Sham [Syria]. Allahu Akbar," possibly referring to the fighting between the Kurds and jihadis in Syria.
Mohammed Baziani, an Islamic researcher and head of the al-Huda Center for Strategic Studies based in Erbil, told Al-Monitor that he does not think Ansar al-Islam is behind the bombing.
“The style of the explosion looks like al-Qaeda. It doesn’t look like what in the past Ansar al-Islam has done. Ansar al-Islam is not powerful enough to do it, to do this kind of explosion in Kurdistan. As a researcher, I don’t have proof, but this is my opinion. I think it belongs to a branch of al-Qaeda.”
The US Consulate in Erbil said it is monitoring reports of the attack. “The United States will continue to support the Kurdistan Regional Government, the Government of Iraq, and the people of Iraq in combating our common enemy of terrorism,” a US press release announced.
Hemin Hussein Hamawandi, an Erbil-based journalist, does not think the attack will make a huge impact on Kurdistan’s security going forward and might be a message from regional countries against the recent democratic elections.
“We passed this step [of insecurity]. We will never return to the past. All the people in Kurdistan help the security system, and security forces, and the KRG has full support for anti-terrorism.”
Wladimir van Wilgenburg is a political analyst specializing in Kurdish politics. He has written extensively for Jamestown Foundation publications and other journals, such as the Near East Quarterly and the World Affairs Journal. He currently writes for the Kurdish newspaper Rudaw. On Twitter: @vvanwilgenburg
(Picture credit: Jan Kurdistani)
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