The death toll from an attack on an Iraqi provincial council headquarters in Tikrit rose to 53 people, a provincial health official said today.
Raed Ibrahim, head of the provincial health department, said 98 people had been wounded in the attack in which gunmen laid siege to the building in Iraq's northern Salahuddin province and took hostages.
Sabah al-Bazee, a freelance Iraqi journalist who worked for Reuters and other media, was among those killed, his family said.
The attackers set off car bombs, explosive belts and hand grenades as they stormed into the building and took hostages, said a local government official who asked not to be named.
"Gunmen are still controlling the building of the provincial council. There are still hostages inside and there are martyrs inside, which means the final situation has not been settled yet," Jasim al-Dulaimi, head of the health operations centre in Salahuddin province, said.
Another provincial official said the gunmen, who wore uniforms of Iraqi security forces, threw hand grenades and opened fire at a checkpoint guarding the Salahuddin provincial council building before they managed to storm in.
"When security forces tried to intervene when they reached the entrance, a parked car bomb exploded," the official said.
"It was a powerful explosion and as a result, some of the security forces were killed. Two suicide bombers detonated themselves inside the provincial building, while other gunmen managed to seize members of the provincial council as hostages."
The second official said special police forces had entered the building and engaged the gunmen, who were holding hostages on the second floor. The first official said the building had been crowded because the provincial council was holding a meeting. He said a curfew had been imposed in Tikrit.
Iraqi security forces and US soldiers had surrounded the building in the city, 150km north of Baghdad.
The US military said some of its forces had initially responded to assist Iraqi security forces but were now only monitoring the situation.
"As additional Iraqi forces arrived on the scene, US forces were not needed to take a direct role in securing the area and monitored the situation to help determine what additional assistance might be required," the US military said.
"We are not aware of any additional requests for assistance by Iraqi forces."
US forces moved into an advisory and assistance role to Iraqi security forces after formally ending combat operations in August ahead of a full withdrawal scheduled for the end of this year.
Reuters