Mosul car bomb raises Iraq toll to 150 since US withdrawal

BAGHDAD // A car bomb killed at least eight people outside of Mosul yesterday, Iraq officials said, in the latest in a series of attacks to target the country's Shiites since the US withdrawal last month.

Violence has surged across Iraq since the last American troops left the country, with a string of bombings killing at least 150 people since the start of the year. Most of the attacks appear to be aimed at Iraq's Shiite majority, suggesting Sunni insurgents are seeking to undermine the Shiite-dominated government.

Yesterday's blast struck a Shiite district outside of Mosul, a predominantly Sunni city 360 kilometres north-west of Baghdad, police said.

An official at Mosul's Al-Jomhouri hospital confirmed the death toll, and said at least six people were wounded.

A member of the city's local council, Qusai Abbas, said the car bomb blew up near a group of houses where members of the Shebek minority have settled since being driven out of Mosul by Sunni militants during fierce sectarian fighting a few years ago.

The Shebeks are ethnic Turkomen and Shiites who mostly live in villages east of Mosul, the provincial capital of the ethnically mixed Ninevah province, which is predominantly Sunni.

Mosul has been a hub for Al Qaeda in Iraq in past years. Other Sunni insurgent groups have battled Kurdish militias for control over the city, Iraq's third largest, killing thousands of civilians in suicide bombings and shootings.

Hundreds of Christians, Yazeedis and members of other minority groups have been driven out Mosul in recent years as militants used violence and intimidation to tip the ethnic and religious balance in their favour.

Iraq is also facing a political crisis after the Shiite-dominated government charged the Sunni vice president, Tareq Al Hashemi, with running death squads, issuing an arrest warrant against him just as the last US soldiers crossed into Kuwait.