Suicide bomber kills 25 in northern Iraq – police

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – A suicide bomber blew himself up
among a group of Iraqi army recruits in northern Iraq on
Friday, killing 25 people and wounding 35, police said.

They said the attack occurred outside a municipal building
in Rabia, a town 50 miles northwest of Mosul, close to the
Syrian border. No other details were immediately available.

Police and army recruits are frequently targeted by
insurgents. In recent months, attacks by suicide bombers
strapped with explosives — as opposed to driving explosives-
laden cars — have become more common.

Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city, and areas to its west
have been a focus of insurgent activity over the past year.

U.S. forces believe insurgents have been flowing into Iraq
across the border from Syria. Rabia is less than 10 km from the
Syrian border. Tal Afar, another town in the area, has been a
stronghold of rebels for several months.

Many of the attacks in and around Mosul in the past have
been claimed by al Qaeda in Iraq, a group headed by Jordanian
militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and allied to Osama bin Laden’s
al Qaeda network.