2005 Erbil bombing

On May 4, 2005, a suicide bomber attacked the offices of Kurdish political parties in Erbil, in Iraq's Kurdistan Region. The attacker, disguised as a job seeker, detonated explosives strapped to his body as crowds of young men lined up outside a police recruiting center. The bomber was unable to gain entry to the recruiting center itself and instead detonated the device near the gate where applicants had gathered.

The explosion killed at least 60 people, the majority of them Kurds hoping to join the police force, and wounded approximately 150 others. Initial reports described a death toll of 46, including a policeman stationed at the gate, with the total later rising to 60 as further casualties were confirmed. The attack was described as the largest single act of terrorism in Iraq since early March 2005.

The Sunni militant group Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Ansar al-Sunna was a militant Islamic Kurdish separatist movement with a Salafist ideology, seeking to transform Iraq into an Islamic state. The group was reportedly founded in 2001 by Mullah Krekar and to have received financial and logistical support from al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, with members reportedly transporting funds from Germany to northern Iraq. The U.S. Department of State designated Ansar al-Sunna (under the related name Ansar al-Islam) a Foreign Terrorist Organization on March 22, 2004. The group has reportedly targeted secular Iraqi Kurds, including members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and has been linked to the torture of prisoners and execution of PUK officials amid a broader, longstanding conflict between Ansar al-Islam/al-Sunna and Kurdish political and security forces dating to 2001.