IRBIL, IRAQ--A suicide bomber struck the U.S. consulate building in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil on Friday afternoon.

Kurdish authorities said at least one person was killed and five others wounded, and local news outlets reported at least three people were dead. Among the wounded were two Westerners who were in a restaurant across the street from the U.S. outpost, witnesses said.

Brett McGurk, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iraq, said in a post on Twitter that all consulate personnel had been accounted for and that there were no reports of injuries among them. He included the hashtag #VBIED, short for vehicle-born improvised explosive device, a car bomb.

The attack was the first direct assault on U.S. facilities in Iraq since the Islamic State took control of much of the northern and central areas of the country last summer and only the second bombing in Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish Regional Government, a city considered so safe that the United States moved many of its diplomats here from Baghdad when the Islamic State captured Mosul and threatened Baghdad last year.

How many bombers were involved in the attack was not immediately known. Kurdish news accounts said that members of the peshmerga militia opened fire on a car or SUV as it approached the entrance to the consulate and that it then exploded.

Gunfire was heard in the neighborhood for several minutes after an initial explosion.

The heavily guarded facility, which houses diplomats and a military command center used to coordinate the air campaign led by the United States against the Islamic State, is located in a quiet residential and predominantly Christian section of the Kurdish capital. It’s accessible only through a heavily guarded pedestrian entrance.

The Iraqi government described the explosion as an improvised explosive device on the road outside the consulate, a description that could include either a car bomb or one carried by a person.

The explosion was followed by heavy gunfire by security forces who claimed to have been engaging other gunmen, although those claims of additional attackers could not be confirmed. Kurdish peshmerga along with Kurdish internal security forces quickly closed off the area as fires raged through a strip mall of coffee shops and restaurants popular with Irbil’s expatriate community across from the consulate.

A U.S. military helicopter circled the area as at least three ambulances evacuated wounded. One peshmerga guard could be seen being loaded into a pickup truck by his comrades as security forces attempted to disperse bystanders and media from the area by frequently firing automatic weapons into the air. (Source: McClatchy)

Story Date: April 18, 2015