Death toll from bombing in Iraq's Mosul rises to 13
MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) — The death toll from a suicide car bombing against the main police headquarters in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul has risen to 13, including children, police said on Tuesday.
Four more people succumbed to their injuries suffered in the Monday night bombing in the centre of Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, police Colonel Saad al-Juburi said.
He said five policemen and two children aged three and seven years were among those killed. The other victims were civilian passers-by, he said.
Juburi said 43 people were in hospital following the bombing, the deadliest in the northern province of Nineveh since security forces began a crackdown against insurgents on May 14.
Interior ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Kareem Khalaf said security forces were pursuing their operations against Al-Qaeda operatives in the region and sought public support to smoke out the insurgents from their hideouts.
Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, which shares a border with Syria, is regarded by US commanders as the jihadists' last urban bastion.
The Iraqi military says it has detained nearly 1,500 people in its crackdown in the city.
Mosul has a mixed population of well over one million including many Kurds and Christians, but Al-Qaeda managed to establish strongholds in several Sunni Arab areas of the city.
