Suicide bombing kills eight in Iraq
'Pakistan Times' Monitoring Desk

MOSUL (Iraq): A suicide bomber killed at least eight people and wounded 46 on Tuesday when he blew up his vehicle at a checkpoint in northern Iraq, the interior ministry said.

Ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Kareem Khalaf said the bomber struck at the Al-Kalah checkpoint in the town of Tal Afar in Nineveh province which has been the scene of major operation against Al-Qaeda since May 14.

"Six Iraqis were killed, among them several security personnel," Khalaf said, adding that of the 46 wounded, at least 10 were in critical condition. There was no immediate comment from the US military.

The blast came as Iraqi security forces kept up a major crackdown on Al-Qaeda across Nineveh province, particularly the provincial capital Mosul, Iraq's third city. Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Tuesday reopened a bridge over the Tigris river in Baghdad that was destroyed in a deadly suicide truck bomb attack a year ago.

Built in 1946 by the British, Al-Sarafiyah bridge was a key landmark in Baghdad and originally designed for a railway line crossing from east to west of the city.

The bridge collapsed when suicide bombers detonated a truck packed with explosives in April 2007.

"We are not here to celebrate just the bridge opening, but also to celebrate the victory of goodwill, reconstruction and nation-building," the prime minister said at the site of the rebuilt 450-metre (yard) bridge.

A dozen people were killed and several cars crashed into the river in the suicide bombing. Baghdad has 12 bridges and Tuesday's reopening is expected to slightly ease traffic in a city where there are dozens of checkpoints.

Some streets are blocked by huge concrete blast walls as a security measure. In August 2005, more than 1,000 people died on another bridge in Baghdad following a stampede after a fake suicide bomb threat during a Shiite pilgrimage. ●