MOSUL, Iraq, Feb 26 (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a bus on Tuesday, killing at least eight people, as the vehicle stopped at a checkpoint near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, security officials said. Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, is described by U.S. officials as the last remaining urban stronghold of al Qaeda in Iraq. The U.S. military accused the Sunni Islamist group of carrying out the bus bombing. Brigadier-General Khalid Abdul-Sattar, Iraqi military operations spokesman in northern Nineveh province, said a bus heading to Syria from the city of Kirkuk was stopped at a military checkpoint in the town of Kasik, 20 km west of Mosul. "A soldier came on board the bus and the bomber tried to get off. The soldier pointed his gun at him and told him to sit down. At that point the bomber detonated his explosives," Sattar told Reuters. Brigadier-General Ibrahim al-Jubouri, police chief of the nearby town of Tal Afar, confirmed the version of events. Sattar said nine people were killed and four wounded in the blast, while the U.S. military put the death toll at eight. All the victims were Iraqis. Another Iraqi military official, who declined to be named, put the death toll at 14. Iraqi and U.S. security forces have launched a series of offensives in northern Iraq to wipe out al Qaeda, which they say regrouped there after being largely ousted from Baghdad and the western province of Anbar, its former stronghold. Attacks across Iraq have fallen 60 percent since last June, U.S. officials say, but al Qaeda has proved resilient and has continued to carry out deadly suicide bombings. It has adapted to the changed security environment by switching targets and methods, including the increased use of women suicide bombers. And a suspected al Qaeda bomber in a wheelchair killed a senior policeman inside the police operations centre in the Iraqi city of Samarra on Monday. Fearful of an al Qaeda strike, Iraq's security forces have staged a major security operation to protect pilgrims heading to the southern Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala for the annual ritual of Arbain, which climaxes on Thursday. Millions are expected to gather in the city, where 40,000 policemen and soldiers backed by tanks have been deployed. Arbain is a major test of the Iraqi security forces' abilities to protect such events. They are a major target for al Qaeda, which considers Shi'ites, a majority in Iraq but a minority in the Muslim world, as heretics. A suspected al Qaeda suicide bomber killed 63 pilgrims at a rest stop on a highway south of Baghdad on Sunday. (Writing by Paul Tait and Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)
Protesters throw stones at a police armoured vehicle during a protest, against Turkey's cross-border ground incursion into northern Iraq, in Diyarbakir February 25, 2008. REUTERS/Anatolian/Nail Kadirhan (TURKEY) TURKEY OUT ...
