An explosion at a building in the northern city of Mosul has
killed at least 14 people and wounded 112 others, police said on
Wednesday.
The blast inside the residential building was a terror attack,
Brigadier Abdul Krarim al-Jubury of the Mosul police told
Xinhua.
He said that the blast at about 4:10 p.m. (1310 GMT) took place
before the Iraqi security force and U.S. troops were about to enter
the building on tips that explosives were inside, but the
insurgents, who might have learned the approach of the troops,
detonated the explosives before their arrival.
The building was deserted and most of the casualties were
passers-by and residents in the nearby houses damaged in the
explosion, and the rescuers were still working to search for people
buried under rubble, according to the officer.
Also on Wednesday, a roadside bombing killed at least six people
and wounded 12 in the northern oil city of Kirkuk.
The attack targeted the convey of Colonel Jawdet Mohammed
Abdulla, deputy chief of Kirkuk's police academy, Brigadier-General
Burhan Wasif of the Kirkuk police told Xinhua.
Abdulla survived the bombing with slight injuries, Wasif
said.
The U.S. military and the Iraqi troops are carrying out a large
offensive mainly in northern Iraq to stamp out al-Qaida and other
insurgents.
In two separate statements, the US military said that at least
20 terrorists have been killed since Wednesday.
Security in Iraq dramatically improved over the past several
months. The US military said in December violence had dropped by
about 60 percent since June, thanks to a large influx of US troops
and the cooperation of Iraq's Sunnis.
Yet, it warned that al-Qaida members, who had largely been
squeezed out of Baghdad and the former hotbed of Anbar province,
were regrouping in northern Iraqi provinces and still capable of
launching remarkable attacks.
(Xinhua News Agency January 24, 2008)
