Apartments explode in northern Iraq

When smoke from the thunderous blast cleared Wednesday, little remained of an apartment building in the northern city of Mosul that officials say had been turned into a massive house-bomb that blew up as Iraqi troops searched for weapons.

The blast, which killed as many as 15 people and injured scores, came on the same day that a car bomb in another northern city killed five. Together, the attacks highlighted the challenge facing U.S. and Iraqi forces as they drive insurgents out of areas farther south, such as Baghdad and Anbar province, only to see them surface in the north.

Military commanders have warned that northern provinces are trouble spots. Nineveh province, whose capital is Mosul, is one of the most worrisome and in recent weeks has been the site of several bloody attacks suspected of being committed by militants loyal to the group Al Qaeda in Iraq. On Monday, a car bomb killed two people south of Mosul, and last week a blast in the city left five dead.

“In Mosul . . . and the rest of Nineveh province, we still have a very tough fight to go,” the commander of U.S. troops in northern Iraq, Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, said during a news briefing this week.

Late Wednesday, the casualty toll from the Mosul blast remained unclear. A U.S. military statement put it at 12 dead and 132 injured, with three Iraqi troops among the wounded. Iraqi police said nine to 15 people were killed and at least 70 wounded, most of them civilians.

According to police, neighbors had alerted security forces that weapons and ammunition were hidden in the building. When Iraqi troops came to investigate about 4:30 p.m., the building blew up.

It was unclear whether the bomb was timed to go off after Iraqi forces arrived or if that was a coincidence. “We’re not sure if it was a trap or not,” said Brig. Gen. Abdul-Kareem Jabouri of the Mosul police.

A police officer described the structure as a three-story apartment building overlooking a stretch of road notorious for insurgent attacks on Iraqi security forces. Many times, the bodies of Iraqis killed in those attacks had been dangled from an overpass crossing the road, he said.

To deter attacks, Iraqi security forces had set up a sniper position atop the building, and the explosion may have been in retaliation for that, said the official, who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Junayed Fajri said his home, which is nearly a mile from the scene, “was shaken awfully and vigorously. After that I rushed into the street. I saw flames going high in the sky.”

“After the explosion, it turned dark,” said Amir Fawzi, another resident. “You can’t imagine the magnitude of damage inflicted on the neighborhood.”

At least 15 other buildings were damaged in the blast in Mosul, which is about 225 miles north of Baghdad.

Elsewhere in the north, police said a suicide bomber exploded his vehicle inside a market in Dibis, near the city of Kirkuk. Five people died and 14 people were injured in the blast, said 1st Lt. Mohammed Rasheed of the Kirkuk police.

Rasheed said it was the first time that a bomber had struck in Dibis, about 20 miles northwest of Kirkuk.

“Why all this terror?” said Jabbar Abdullah, a resident who dived behind a car and buried his head beneath his bags of newly purchased groceries to escape the blast. “When I rose up, I saw an awful scene,” he said. “Body parts here and there. Shops were burning. The fire was consuming the vehicles.”

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, the targeting of professionals by extremists who consider them sellouts to the U.S.-backed government apparently continued with the assassination Wednesday of the dean of Baghdad’s College of Dentistry. Dr. Mundher Muhhari Radhi had been on the job only one week when he was gunned down near his home in central Baghdad.

Police said that the killers opened fire from a passing car and that witnesses were unable to describe them or the vehicle, which sped away into heavy fog and rain. Drive-by gunmen also killed three Iraqi soldiers in northwest Baghdad.

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tina.susman@latimes.com

Special correspondent Ruaa Al-Zarary in Mosul and special correspondents in Kirkuk and Baghdad contributed to this report.