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Suicide car bomb kills 10 in north Iraq

15 May 2010 03:19 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Three suicide bombers blew themselves up at a sports field in a predominantly Shiite town in northern Iraq on Friday, killing at least 10 people and wounding another 120, police and hospital officials said, APA reports quoting â€œAssociated Pressâ€.
The attack took place during a soccer game Friday evening in the town of Tal Afar, located between the Syrian border and the volatile city of Mosul.
The first bomber waited until the end of the match and then detonated his car bomb amid a crowd of supporters and players near the field’s entrance. In the ensuing panic, two others attackers activated their suicide belts inside the screaming crowd, local police officials said.
The sports field was located in a majority Shiite neighborhood in the ethnically Turkomen town that has been repeatedly targeted by suicide bombers over the years.
A hospital official confirmed the casualty figures. Many of the wounded were taken by ambulance to Dahuk, some 37 miles (60 kilometers) away because local hospitals were overburdened.
All of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Once an insurgent stronghold, Tal Afar became a test case for the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency strategy in 2005, and was largely pacified. It has remained a target, however, and has gone through cycles of stability and instability for years.
Up until Friday’s blasts, the most recent attacks in the city took place in October and prior to that in July, with dozens killed in both cases.
Iraq was wracked by a string of coordinated attacks on Monday, killing 119 people across 10 cities. In most cases, Shiites or members of the security services were targets.