Iraqi firefighters search for wounded people amid rubble at the site of an explosion in Mosul.



Suicide bomber kills north Iraq police chief


By Paul Tait
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber in police uniform killed a top police official in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Thursday as he toured the site of a blast a day earlier that killed 36 people and wounded scores, police said.
Rescuers were still digging through the rubble of Wednesday’s explosion in search of survivors when the attacker blew up next to Nineveh province police director Brigadier-General Salih Mohammed Hasan Atiya al-Jubouri, the U.S. military and Iraqi officials said.
Nineveh provincial council chief Hisham al-Hamdani said 169 people had also been wounded in Wednesday’s blast.
U.S. and Iraqi military officials said the suicide bomber walked up to Jubouri as he toured the site and detonated a vest packed with explosives. He died of his wounds as he was being rushed for emergency treatment…
The U.S. military said two Iraqi police were also killed in Thursday’s blast. Police said an Iraqi journalist working for the Chinese state news agency Xinhua was among five others wounded, although no more information was immediately available.
The U.S. military said a U.S. soldier was also wounded…
Women and children were among the victims, officials said. Heavy equipment was being used to clear the debris and the U.S. military has sent medical teams to Mosul to help treat the scores of wounded.
The explosion, in an unoccupied, three-storey house used by militants to store weapons and tonnes of explosives, destroyed or badly damaged 35 nearby homes.
“This is a stark example of al Qaeda’s disregard for the citizens of Iraq,” Major-General Mark Hertling, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, said in a statement.
“It also highlights their willingness to risk the lives of innocent civilians by storing weapons in civilian homes.” …
Witnesses described the blast, which sent a huge plume of smoke rising above Mosul, as one of the biggest explosions ever heard in the city… Despite such bombings in the north, violence has fallen sharply across the country, with overall attacks down by 60 percent since last June…

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