17 dead in Iraq bomb blast

At least 17 people were killed and 25 wounded when a truck bomb exploded overnight in a Kurdish village southeast of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, a police officer said today.

The truck exploded just after midnight (0230 GMT) in the village of Wardak, Captain Mohammed Jalal told AFP, adding that it was a suicide attack. A second suicide attack was foiled when the driver was killed by Iraqi security forces before he could trigger the explosives in his truck, said Jalal.

Iraqi soldiers and police, as well as Kurdish Peshmerga troops, have sealed off the area around the village, he added. Most of the wounded have been evacuated to a hospital in the town of Hamdia. The region around Mosul, 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of the capital Baghdad, remains one of the most violent in Iraq.

Attacks in the area have increased dramatically in recent weeks, becoming an almost daily occurrence, further straining tensions between the Arab and Kurdish communities.

Four American soldiers and 10 Iraqi police were killed in northern Iraq on Tuesday, making it the bloodiest day that the US military has experienced in five months.