Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
October 17, 2007 By Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Mudhafer al-Husaini
BAGHDAD, Oct. 16 — A suicide truck bomb killed as many as 16 people and wounded more than 50 others when it destroyed a police station in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, according to a Health Ministry official there.
It was not clear how many Iraqi policemen were among the dead and wounded. Some news reports quoted officials as saying that the police death toll was four.
One witness, Ali Mishal, said the bomber evaded blast walls and other defenses near the police station by approaching on side streets. “The explosion was huge, and the windows of all the houses in the neighborhood were blown out by the huge power” of the blast, he said.
The attack followed a bombing in central Baghdad on Tuesday that an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said killed at least four people, including two Iraqi policemen, and wounded 20 others. Witnesses offered differing accounts of whether the bomb was detonated during a suicide attack or had been stowed in a parked car, but they agreed that it struck an Iraqi police patrol.
One worker who narrowly survived the blast and gave his name as Khalid said he had just bought a pack of cigarettes from a sidewalk vendor in front of the car containing the bomb. He then walked back toward the travel company where he works. “As soon as I got into the company, the huge blast struck, breaking all the glass into pieces,” he said.
In Kut, south of Baghdad, 56 Iranian prisoners were released and delivered to Iranian diplomats on Monday, according to the Kut governor’s office. All had been charged with illegal entry into Iraq and sentenced to one year in prison.
Qais Mizher and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Mosul and Kut.
October 17, 2007 By Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Mudhafer al-Husaini
BAGHDAD, Oct. 16 — A suicide truck bomb killed as many as 16 people and wounded more than 50 others when it destroyed a police station in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, according to a Health Ministry official there.
It was not clear how many Iraqi policemen were among the dead and wounded. Some news reports quoted officials as saying that the police death toll was four.
One witness, Ali Mishal, said the bomber evaded blast walls and other defenses near the police station by approaching on side streets. “The explosion was huge, and the windows of all the houses in the neighborhood were blown out by the huge power” of the blast, he said.
The attack followed a bombing in central Baghdad on Tuesday that an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said killed at least four people, including two Iraqi policemen, and wounded 20 others. Witnesses offered differing accounts of whether the bomb was detonated during a suicide attack or had been stowed in a parked car, but they agreed that it struck an Iraqi police patrol.
One worker who narrowly survived the blast and gave his name as Khalid said he had just bought a pack of cigarettes from a sidewalk vendor in front of the car containing the bomb. He then walked back toward the travel company where he works. “As soon as I got into the company, the huge blast struck, breaking all the glass into pieces,” he said.
In Kut, south of Baghdad, 56 Iranian prisoners were released and delivered to Iranian diplomats on Monday, according to the Kut governor’s office. All had been charged with illegal entry into Iraq and sentenced to one year in prison.
Qais Mizher and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Mosul and Kut.