TIKRIT, Iraq, March 29 (UPI) -- Gunmen dressed as police stormed a provincial council office in Tikrit in northern Iraq Tuesday in an attack that left at least 53 people dead, officials said.
Officials said more than 90 people were wounded, The Washington Post reported. The newspaper said a doctor at Salahuddin Hospital put the death toll at 53 while a morgue official said it had reached 75.
Iraqi officials said al-Qaida was responsible for the assault.
Dozens of people, including five members of the council, were taken hostage by about a dozen insurgents, Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported. The hostage drama ended Tuesday evening when Iraqi security forces moved in and retook the building in fierce fighting, a witness told The New York Times.
The gunmen and all of their hostages were killed, officials said.
The Times reported the attack began when one attacker detonated a car bomb as the others raced inside the building in the hometown of the late dictator Saddam Hussein. KUNA said the gunmen wore Iraqi police uniforms and were armed with hand grenades, explosives belts and machine guns.
Col. Amman Nawfan, head of police in Iraq's northern Salahuddin province, three deputies, a correspondent for the Saudi News Channel Arabiya, and other civilians and police employees were among those killed.
Several council members, including the head of the provincial council, escaped as the terrorists entered the building. "We were lucky," council member Ali Ajily told the Times.
U.S. troops responded to the attack but later pulled back, leaving about 1,000 Iraqi troops to handle the operation, the newspaper said. Some U.S. soldiers reportedly suffered minor injuries. Iran's Press TV said a curfew was in effect in Tikrit.
Iraqi security forces and two witnesses who escaped by jumping from a second-floor window told the Post the attackers roamed the building, throwing grenades and shooting government officials and workers. Some people leaped from the third floor as well, suffering broken bones.
"People who tried to run away were shot," Hassoun al-Jubouri told the Post. "We heard explosions going off and gunshots."
The 55-year-old engineer and six other people barricaded themselves in a room and then escaped when others outside put a ladder against the building.
