IRBIL, Iraq – A suicide car bomber wearing a police uniform killed at least 15 traffic policemen and wounded 100 others yesterday during morning roll call at a police headquarters in this oil rich northern Kurdish city, the second such attack in as many days.

The bombing was the latest in a relentless series of explosions that have killed nearly 1,200 people in less than two months. On Sunday, a suicide bomber walked into a Baghdad kebab restaurant popular with policemen and blew himself up, killing 23 people, including seven police officers.

“Most of the attacks targeting the Iraqi security forces, including the police, are launched by Islamic fundamentalists,” an Interior Ministry spokesman, Sabah Kadhim, said. “Iraq has become the center of global terrorism, and those groups’ attacks are aiming to create a sectarian crisis. Their main aim is to keep the country in chaos.”

Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who leads Al Qaeda in Iraq, purportedly gave his stamp of approval in an audiotaped message last month to the killing of fellow Muslims and civilians collaborating with the Shiite-led government and America.

Extremists have in recent weeks mostly targeted the Iraqi security forces at the forefront of government counterinsurgency operations – both in an effort to shatter their morale and prevent recruits from signing up.

Sunni Arabs make up the core of Iraq’s insurgency, and the minority has felt politically embittered by the rise of the Shiites and the Kurds – two communities that account for about 80% of the country’s estimated 26 million people. Many Sunni Arabs boycotted January’s elections.

“Terrorist groups try to stand against Iraq’s political process,” the Irbil governor, Nowzat Hadi, told reporters. “Terrorists are trying to harm the Kurdish region because it is a secure place, and because Irbil represents the political center of Kurdistan.”

Irbil and nearby Sulaimaniyah are two key cities in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, which has enjoyed autonomous rule since 1991. The area has been largely sheltered from the violence wracking the remainder of Iraq, but has seen several major bombings blamed on militant groups.

Yesterday’s attack in Irbil was the largest in a day of violence that left at least 37 people killed – mostly Iraqi policemen and soldiers. One American soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in northern Iraq.