Monday, June 27 2005 09:47 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mosul: At least 25 people were killed in bombings targeting Iraqi security forces yesterday (Jun 26, 2005) as US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld confirmed that Pentagon officials had been in contact with insurgents in a bid to stem the violence.

A US soldier was also killed and two wounded in a roadside bombing in the capital, while the military confirmed two more deaths from a suicide attack on a convoy last week.

At least 25 people were killed in a trio of bomb blasts targeting Iraqi police or Army bases in and around the region's main city of Mosul yesterday, bringing the death toll from attacks over the day to at least 37.

Fifteen people were killed and seven wounded when a bomber blew himself up among a crowd of people gathered in a parking lot next to the Al-Kisk army base west of the city, US military spokesman Captain Mark Walter said.

The base is one of the largest in Iraq and many US advisors involved in training the fledgling Iraqi security forces are stationed there, he said.

At least five policemen and a civilian were killed and 13 people wounded, half a dozen of them policemen, in a blast targeting the Al-Hadba police station, a police spokesman said.

The bomber blew up explosives hidden beneath a cargo of melons on his pick-up truck in the deadliest attack against a police station in Mosul since a spate of assaults in November that prompted the bulk of the city's 5,000-strong force to quit.

Since then US-backed Iraqi soldiers have taken the lead role in security while the local police force is rebuilt.

The final bombing hit a small police station attached to the Mosul hospital where most of the casualties from the earlier attacks had been taken. A man strapped with explosives walked into the station and blew himself up, killing four policemen and wounding six, its commander Mohammed Fathi said.

In further violence against Iraqi security forces, six members of a commando unit and Colonel Riad Abdel Karim, a deputy police chief in the capital, were gunned down in separate incidents in Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

Also in Baghdad, a mother and two girls were killed in a mortar attack.

Four Iraqi police and three US soldiers were wounded in four roadside bombings in and around the northern oil city of Kirkuk, security sources said.

One of the attacks involved insurgents blowing up a dog strapped with explosives as a police convoy drove by.

The US military raised the confirmed death toll from an attack on a convoy in Fallujah on Thursday (Jun 23, 2005) to four, with a marine and a sailor still posted as missing.

A total of 1,725 US military personnel have been killed since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, adding to the pressure on Washington over its continued involvement in Iraq.

Meanwhile, in what appeared to be a new sectarian killing by the Sunni Arab insurgents, the disfigured bodies of nine Shiite she dealers were brought home to their native Karbala province on Saturday (Jun 25, 2005) and the bodies of five truck drivers were found in a restive area south of the capital, police said.