Baghdad: A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into a sandbagged wall surrounding a police headquarters in northern Iraq on Friday, killing five American soldiers and two Iraqi policemen in the single deadliest attack against US forces in more than a year, the US military and Iraqi police said.
A sixth American soldier and 17 Iraqi policemen were wounded in the blast that took place near the national police headquarters in southwestern Mosul -- Iraq's third-largest city and Al-Qaeda's last urban stronghold.
Lt Col Michael Stuart, chief of US operations in Tikrit, an Iraqi city north of Baghdad, said the target was the Iraqi national police complex in Mosul and not the US patrol. He said the American patrol just happened to be on the same street when the attack occurred.
"It was just bad timing," Stuart said.
The suicide bomber, who was driving a truck filled with grain, made a sharp turn as he approached the police complex, then rammed his truck through an iron barrier, hitting the sandbagged wall beyond it and detonating his vehicle near the station's main building, Iraqi police said.
The blast shook the entire complex and badly damaged nearby buildings, witnesses and police said.
A policeman, who identified himself as Abu Mohammed, said he saw the truck driving behind two US Humvees on the street leading to the police headquarters. The Humvees entered the complex, came to a stop, and within seconds, the truck turned and rammed the iron barrier, he said.