Eight dead in northern Iraq blast

07/10/2006| IslamWeb

At least eight people have died after a car bomber hit an Iraqi army checkpoint in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, police said.

Colonel Abdel-Karim al-Jubouri, Mosul's police chief, said the attack took place at a checkpoint at around 8.45am local time (0545 GMT) in Tal Afar, about 420 kilometres northwest of Baghdad.

The attacker ploughed a truck laden with explosives into the wall of a house used as a lookout by soldiers in the Al-Salam district of the town, the AFP news agency reported.

Four soldiers and four civilians were killed in the attack, while at least six more people were wounded, police said.

Eyewitnesses told Aljazeera that ambulances transferred the army's casualties to a nearby military base for treatment.

In March, George Bush, the US president, praised Tal Afar as an example of the progress being made in Iraq after US-led forces drove out al-Qaeda fighters in a 2005 offensive there.

Last month, at least 17 people died after a bomber blew himself up in the town.

Meanwhile, at least two people died and four more were injured when a mortar shell hit a house in the early hours of Saturday morning in Iskandariyah, 50km south of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, police said.

More than 50,000 Iraqi and US troops are currently deployed around Baghdad in support of Operation Together Forward, an attempt to quash a wave of bloody sectarian violence in the country. 

Photo Caption

The map of Iraq

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