MOSUL, Iraq (AFP) — At least 20 people were killed and another 42 wounded in two suicide bombings targeting police and security forces in northern Iraq on Thursday, officials said.
A man in a explosives-packed jacket blew himself up at a recruitment centre in Sinjar, a town west of the provincial capital Mosul on the road to Syria, and killed 17 people, officials said.
Interior ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Kareem Khalaf told AFP that the bomber targeted a centre that recruited personnel for the police and security services in the area.
Hospital sources said about 30 people were wounded.
A few hours earlier, a suicide bomber drove into a group of police officers and detonated his explosives in Al-Gabat, just north of Mosul, police Captain Aziz Imara told AFP.
At least three people, including two policemen, were killed and 12 people were wounded, he said, adding that the blast had also damaged shops and restaurants.
Iraqi security forces backed by the US military have been conducting a major crackdown against jihadists in the area since May 14. Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, is regarded by the American military as the last urban bastion of Al-Qaeda in the country.
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