[Breaking news update, 1:40 p.m.]
ISIS has claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb attack Friday near the U.S. Consulate in the Kurdish Iraqi city of Irbil, according to several Twitter accounts linked to the terror group. The U.S. Consulate was the target of the attack, ISIS said.
[Previous story, published at 1:05 p.m.]
Suicide bombers blew up a car they were driving Friday near the U.S. Consulate in the Kurdish Iraqi city of Irbil, killing at least two people and injuring five others, police said.
All U.S. Consulate personnel were safe and accounted for following the explosion, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.
Irbil is the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government.
Police said the incident began with an explosion of a small improvised bomb in the area. After that blast, a car moved in the direction of the consulate.
Security personnel fired at the car, which exploded but did not reach the consulate, a police official said. It appeared that people inside the car detonated explosives that the vehicle was carrying, according to the police official.
A separate official, B.G. Hazhar Ismail, said three civilians were killed and five others were injured. Ismail is a spokesman for the Peshmerga, the force that defends Iraq’s Kurdish region.