Police station suicide attack kills eight

At least eight people are killed, including five American soldiers, in a suicide lorry bombing in Iraq's northern city of Mosul.

At least eight people were killed, including five American soldiers, and 20 wounded in a suicide lorry bombing in Iraq's northern city of Mosul today. The explosives-laden lorry ploughed into a police station in the southern part of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, Lt Col Mohammed al-Juburi told the AFP news agency. An interior ministry official in Baghdad said at least eight people were killed in the blast and another 20 were wounded. "Five US coalition soldiers were killed, and one wounded from a suicide vehicle borne improvised explosive device attack earlier today in Mosul," a US army statement said. At least two individuals suspected of being involved have been detained, the US statement added.

Despite repeated Iraqi-US operations in Mosul, the city is still gripped by a strong insurgency, in part due to a complex Kurd, Sunni and Christian mix but also because of tribal rivalries. Earlier today two roadside bomb attacks near Baghdad killed three people and wounded seven others, according to local security officials. The bombings took place a day after thousands of people gathered in Baghdad to call for the withdrawal of all US military forces from Iraq on the sixth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Security has improved dramatically since 2007 when Iraqi and US forces launched offensives against al Qa'eda militants with the help of local US-financed and trained Sahwa "Awakening" militias. *AFP