At least 50 killed, 40 wounded in insurgent attacks in Iraq

IRAQ: Insurgent attacks across northern Iraq killed at least 50 people and wounded more than 40 on a day when the US and Iraqi officials announced the arrest of a man they say is connected with the suicide bombings in Baghdad in which women with Down syndrome were used.

In the deadliest incident yesterday, a car bomb exploded near an Iraqi army checkpoint in a market in Balad, killing at least 23 people, according to US officials. Iraqi sources put the toll at 33.

Earlier, at least 22 people were killed and 10 wounded when insurgents fought with anti- al-Qaeda groups and Iraqi forces west of Mosul. Iraqi sources said the fighting began when about 25 car loads of heavily armed gunmen drove into the villages of Khams Tlol and al-Madina.

The Balad blast was the deadliest since the apparently co-ordinated suicide attacks in Baghdad killed 99 people 10 days ago.

US and Iraqi officials yesterday arrested a man at a psychiatric hospital. A hospital official said the man was accused of "working with al-Qaeda and recruiting mentally ill women and using them in suicide bombing operations".

Yesterday's violence in the north came just hours before US defence secretary Robert Gates arrived in Baghdad to discuss US troop levels and to prepare the ground for talks on a controversial strategic agreement with Iraq which are due to start later this month.

US and Iraqi commanders have described Sunni-dominated Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, as the last major urban redoubt for al-Qaeda in Iraq.

© 2008 Guardian Service

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times