8 wounded in Iraqi Kurd demo

SULAIMANIYAH: At least eight people, four police and four civilians, were wounded on Sunday when clashes erupted during a rally in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, a medical official said.

Around 1,500 protesters had tried to march to Salem street, the site of violent demonstrations that left two young men killed and 54 wounded on Thursday, but security forces blocked their progress, sparking the clashes.

"We are treating eight people who were wounded," said an official at Sulaimaniyah hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He said two civilians were wounded by bullets when Kurdish security forces fired their weapons into the air, while the rest had suffered injuries as a result of clashes.

The demonstrators on Thursday had also attempted to move toward the Salem street headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in Sulaimaniyah.

Immediately after those protests, looters targeted seven offices of the Kurdish opposition Goran party, despite the bloc's denials it was involved in protests at the KDP offices.

The KDP, led by regional president Massud Barzani, and the PUK, led by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, have for decades lorded over the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.