BAGHDAD — The Abdullah restaurant was the kind of place Iraqis took their families on special occasions. It was the kind of place high-ranking officials in the northern city of Kirkuk chose for power lunches, where they dug in to plates on tables covered with white cloths as water burbled from a decorative fountain.
On Thursday, as families celebrated the Eid al-Adha holiday and Arab and Kurdish leaders talked reconciliation in the crowded dining room, it was the kind of place a suicide bomber decided was the perfect target. He set off his explosives during the height of the lunch rush, killing at least 50 people, wounding about 100, and ending what had been a remarkable stretch of calm nationwide during the four-day Eid celebration.
Suspicion fell upon Sunni Arab insurgents. They want to drive Kurds from Kirkuk, an oil-rich city about 150 miles north of Baghdad with a tortured past and, if Thursday's attack is anything to go by, a turbulent future.
The attack occurred as local Kurdish and Arab leaders were gathered at the restaurant in what Arab lawmaker Hussein Ali Salih said was "a meeting of understanding." Last week, the Kurds had visited Arab politicians in nearby Hawija, Salih said. This time, it was the Arabs' turn to visit the Kurds.
"They had invited us to a banquet in the restaurant. We were sitting there and suddenly there was an explosion that shook the whole place," Salih said.
He called the attack a "miserable attempt from the remnants of darkness" to hamper reconciliation efforts in northern Iraq, where Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens all want a slice of Kirkuk.
Under Saddam Hussein, Kurds were driven out of Kirkuk to make way for Arabs sent in by the government, which at the time was led by minority Sunnis. Since Hussein's ouster, Kurds have tried to reclaim what they say is theirs. As part of that, they have sought to make Kirkuk part of Kurdistan, a self-governing region that stretches across much of northern Iraq. That move is opposed by Arabs and Turkmens.
One of the concerns among Arabs and Turkmens is that the Kurds would control the extensive oil reserves in the region around Kirkuk. The fight over who gets to manage the oil and its profits has paralyzed Iraqi attempts to pass U.S.-backed legislation aimed at reviving the petroleum industry and luring foreign investment.
A referendum on Kirkuk's future was supposed to have been held last year but has been delayed indefinitely amid political fighting, leaving time for tensions to fester.
