Dozens killed in Iraqi bomb attacks

Two truck bombs went off in a Shiite community near the northern city of Mosul, while blasts in Baghdad also targeted primarily Shiites in a new wave of sectarian violence.

The attacks came a month after US troops pulled back from cities and handed over security to Iraqi soldiers.

The US military stressed that despite the rise in attacks, the Shiites are showing restraint and not retaliating as they did more than two years ago when a similar series of attacks and bombings provoked a Shiite backlash that degenerated into a sectarian slaughter claiming tens of thousands of lives.

The deadliest blast on Monday was a double truck bombing in Khazna village, just east of Mosul, home of the Shabak, a small Shiite ethnic group in the north with its own distinct language and beliefs.

The two explosives-laden trucks went off nearly simultaneously and less than 500 yards apart, killing at least 28 people and wounding 138, said police and hospital officials. The US military confirmed at least 25 were killed.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents who remain active in Mosul and surrounding areas.

Witnesses described a chaotic scene of rescuers searching through the rubble of at least 15 houses that were destroyed. Many of the dead and wounded were sleeping on their roofs because of the summer heat.

The explosions left a seven-foot crater and reduced the neighbourhood to piles of bricks, twisted metal and smoking debris. Family members pulled the wounded from the debris and carried them to safety, as ambulances wailed through the neighbourhood.

Bombs also went off in Baghdad despite the security gains there that have prompted the Iraqi government to order the removal of nearly all the blast walls in the city within 40 days.