Suicide bombers struck yesterday against Iraqi security forces in two cities, killing 28 and injuring more than 20 others, officials said. The attacks were aimed at undermining morale in a force the US hopes will assume a greater role in battling the rebels.
Three other people died in a mortar attack on a Mosul police station.
In Mosul, a suicide bomber blew himself up among a group of policemen inside a hospital compound, killing 12 policemen and injuring four others, hospital officials said. An al-Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility.
Also yesterday, a car bomb exploded outside the protective blast barriers of a provincial police headquarters in the city of Baqouba, killing 15 people and wounding 17, police Colonel Mudhahar al-Jubouri said. Many of the victims were there to seek jobs as policemen, al-Jubouri said.
The Mosul attack occurred at the city's Jumhouri Teaching Hospital, hospital director Tahseen Ali Mahmoud al-Obeidi said. Witnesses said the bomber called the police officers over to him and then blew up among the crowd.
"I heard an explosion. When I went to check, I saw bodies everywhere," al-Obeidi said.
The ground was soaked with blood. Nurses collected pieces of flesh and body parts, putting them in bags.
In a posting on a Web site, the al-Qaeda in Iraq group, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said "a lion from the Martyrs Brigade" wearing an explosives belt managed to get inside a police post at the Mosul hospital.
The claim could not be verified.
There was no claim of responsibility for the Baqouba attack.
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