US army kills 25 insurgents in Mosul

MOSUL - US troops backed by warplanes have killed 25 guerrillas in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul after facing a fierce coordinated assault by two suicide bombs and dozens of insurgents, the military say.

The brazen rebel assault on Wednesday illustrated the increasing boldness of insurgents in the city, following a suicide attack on a Mosul base last week that killed 22 people including 18 Americans -- the deadliest single attack on Americans in Iraq since the start of the war to oust Saddam Hussein.

Witnesses said the fighting began when a suicide bomber detonated a fuel truck outside a house in Mosul that has been occupied as a combat outpost by US troops since last month.

Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings, US military spokesman in Mosul, said a patrol responding to the blast was attacked by a second suicide car bomb, and also had to deal with several roadside bombs before reaching the combat outpost.

Around 50 insurgents then attacked the outpost with assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, Hastings said.

"Close air support was called in. Initial estimates are 25 enemy killed," Hastings said.

He said 15 US troops were wounded in the clashes.

Security collapsed in Mosul last month when rebels overran several police stations in the city, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, and most of the city's police fled their posts.

The US military has conceded it is not in control of some areas and plans to send thousands more troops to the city ahead of Iraq's elections on January 30.

Attacks this week on police and other Iraqi security forces have left dozens dead in a sign that the Sunni insurgency, freshly endorsed by Osama bin Laden, remains potent despite US offensives intended to protect the election.

In Baghdad, at least 28 people were killed overnight when insurgents detonated three-quarters of a tonne of explosives in a house that police were raiding, flattening neighbouring homes.

Six policemen were among the dead and four officers were missing, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. Witnesses saw at least one more dead woman dug from the rubble of nearby houses razed by the massive blast. At least 21 people were wounded.

Police had responded to a call from a neighbour, the ministry spokesman said. "When the police arrived and went in, the house blew up," he said. "It seems to have been a trap."

Neighbours said they had called police after becoming suspicious of a foreign-looking dark-skinned man in the house, which they said had been rented this week and filled with boxes.

"The house was turned into a bomb," a police officer said.

Three houses were razed to piles of bricks and rubble, while half a dozen others were damaged. Entire families were wiped out, neighbours said.

"I saw unexploded artillery shells with red wires taken out of the rubble," said neighbour Mohammed Ali, 35, a taxi driver.

- REUTERS