Twin suicide bombings in northern Iraq kill 5 from police and army

Suicide bombers kill 5 in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD — Twin suicide bombings killed four Iraqi policemen and a soldier in separate attacks Thursday, officials said, in a northern city long considered al-Qaida’s last stronghold in Iraq.

The noontime violence targeted a police checkpoint and an Iraqi army camp on opposites sides of Mosul, located about 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad.

A third attack west of the city was thwarted when police opened fire on a suicide car bomb speeding towards a cattle market in the nearby town of Tal Afar, blowing it up, according to a Mosul police officer

The police officials spoke on who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

Iraq’s security forces are frequently targeted as the American military prepares to end its combat mission in Iraq this summer, even as violence around the country has dropped sharply from when it teetered on the brink of civil war in 2005-07.

The worst of Thursday’s attacks came at a police checkpoint in western Mosul’s al-Shefah neighborhood.

Police said the suicide bomber with explosives strapped around his body blew himself up near the checkpoint around 12:30 p.m., killing four policemen and wounding four others. The casualties were confirmed by Mosul morgue official Saad Abdul-Moneim.

A half-hour earlier, two men detonated their explosives belts outside the main gate of an Iraqi army camp in eastern Mosul’s Kokjali neighborhood. The police official and Abdul-Munaim said one soldier was killed and five more wounded in the blast.

It was not known if the attacks were coordinated.

Mosul has long been known as an al-Qaida recruiting ground for suicide bombers and other Sunni insurgents. It resides on one of Iraq’s political and ethnic fault lines, and includes Sunni Arab, Christian and Kurdish communities.

The ability of insurgents to target Iraqi security forces raises worries about their ability to protect the country as all but 50,000 American troops leave by Aug. 31 — the first step toward a full American military withdrawal by the end of next year.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad killed two policemen on a late morning patrol and wounded four others, said a police official and a medic at nearby Kindi hospital. Four bystanders also were injured, the officials said.