Bombers kill 33 in Mosul

2005-06-27 08:07

Mosul, Iraq - Suicide bombers struck a police headquarters, an army base and a hospital around Mosul, killing 33 people in a setback to efforts to rebuild the northwestern city's police force that was riven by intimidation from insurgents seven months ago.

At least 14 people were killed in attacks elsewhere in Iraq on Sunday, including a US soldier whose convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in Baghdad and six Iraqi soldiers who were gunned down outside their base north of the capital.

The attacks in Mosul, 360 kilometre northwest of Baghdad, started early on Sunday when a suicide bomber with explosives hidden beneath watermelons in a pickup truck slammed into a downtown police station near a market. US army captain mark Walter said 10 policemen and two civilians were killed.

Less than two hours later, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the parking lot of an Iraqi army base on Mosul's outskirts, killing 16 people, Walter said. Most of the victims were civilian workers arriving at the site, he said. Of the seven injured, one lost a leg and another was paralysed from the waist down, the military said.

A third attacker strapped with explosives walked into Mosul's Jumhouri Teaching Hospital in the afternoon and blew himself up in a room used by police guarding the facility, killing five policemen.

An Associated Press reporter was outside the hospital when the explosion occurred, blowing a hole in a side of the building and injuring some police officers outside. Smoke then began pouring out of the hole, followed by flames.

Inside, dead police officers who apparently had been sleeping were sprawled in their underwear, their bodies and the walls peppered with ball bearings.

"I thought it was a mortar attack. I rushed to help and evacuate the dead. I picked up two legs and two hands. It seems they belonged to the bomber because we did not find a head or the rest of his body," said Ahmed Mohammed al-Hadidi, a hospital medic.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attacks in Mosul - the country's third-largest city. The claim, which was made on an internet site used by militants, could not be verified.

- AP