"Just bad timing" as 5 U.S. soldiers die in Iraq attack

MOSUL, Iraq — A suicide truck bomber attacked a police headquarters Friday in the northern city of Mosul, killing five U.S. soldiers in the deadliest strike against American forces in Iraq in 13 months.

The bomber evaded several concrete barriers and detonated his truck loaded with explosives at the entrance to the local headquarters of Iraq's national police.

The U.S. military said Iraqi police were the bomber's target and that the Americans were caught up as bystanders.

A U.S. military convoy passing at the time provided the bomber with a "target of opportunity," said U.S. Army spokesman Maj. Derrick Cheng

Lt. Col. Michael Stuart, chief of operations for northern Iraq, said that "it was just bad timing" for the Americans.

Besides the five Americans, two Iraqi policemen also died in the blast, believed to have been carried out by Sunni extremists. At least 62 people, including one American soldier and 27 civilians, were wounded, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

Of the 31 U.S. troops killed in combat in the Iraq war this year, more than a third — 11 — have been in Mosul, an impoverished city where efforts to obliterate al-Qaida and other Sunni militants have failed over the years. About 2,000 U.S. troops and 20,000 Iraqi army and police officers are stationed inside Mosul.

On a surprise visit to Baghdad this week, President Obama touted security gains in Iraq.

He said it was time for Iraqis to take full control of their country, in keeping with plans to pull U.S. combat troops back from the cities by June 30 and for all combat brigades to leave the country by August 2010.

However, Baghdad residents have been rattled by a recent increase in violence, raising concerns that the capital could slip back into chaos. On the day before Obama arrived, six car bombings in Baghdad killed 36 people.

Mosul and surrounding areas have not seen even relative peace, and U.S. troops are increasingly called on there to try to prevent new violence. On any day, Mosul is rocked by bombings against its civilian population.

Also Friday, police in Diyala province said one person was killed and five were wounded when a bomb hidden on a bicycle exploded Thursday night during a wedding celebration about 45 miles northeast of Baghdad.

Iraqi police in the southern city of Basra said Friday they arrested 65 people in overnight raids after an attack on a U.S. convoy in the area and the kidnapping of two guards working for a local Iraqi security firm.

The last time five died in a single combat incident in Iraq was in March 2008, when a suicide bomber attacked a foot patrol in Baghdad.