Truck bomb kills at least 30 in Tal Afar, including 19 children; Dozens of homes pulverized in blast

Above: Aftermath of a bombing in Tal Afar on March 27th which killed at least 152 and wounded 500 others. Shi'ite police went on a killing spree the day after the bombing, pulling from their houses and slaughtering up to 70 Sunni men. 18 police were arrested, then released. There has been no news since on any prosecutions.

Suicide bomber rams into town

A suicide bomber sped into a Shi'ite village and blew up a truck packed with explosives unleashing a massive blast that killed 30 people and pulverised mud-brick homes in northern Iraq on Monday.

The bomber detonated his deadly charge in Al-Quba after driving across farmland and flattening homes, killing 30 people and wounding dozens, the mayor of nearby town of Tal Afar, Major General Najim Abdallah, told AFP.

"It was filled with a huge amount of explosives. Twenty houses were destroyed, 10 of them entirely wiped out," said Abdallah, speaking from the town 20km away that scrambled the nearest emergency services.

Witnesses spoke of seeing foam to make mattresses sticking out of the truck to disguise the explosives hidden underneath, when the truck went off road and sped across farmland to the village of 7 000 inhabitants, Abdallah said.

Bodies were pulled out of the rubble of flattened homes in the village whose nearly 200 houses are built mostly from mud, and the victims ferried to hospitals as far away as the neighbouring Kurdish province of Dohuk, he said.

Read the rest at News 24

Suicide bomb kills 28 in Tal Afar

BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber slammed his truck into a densely populated residential area in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar on Monday, killing at least 28 people, including 19 children, local authorities said.

The attack occurred in a crowded Shiite neighborhood of the religiously mixed city, about 250 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The powerful blast caused houses to collapse in the morning as many families were getting ready for the day, and officials said the death toll could rise.

"Rescue teams are still searching for casualties among the rubble," said Ali Abbo, the head of the human rights committee.

He said the hospital in Tal Afar had been filled to capacity, forcing the ambulances to take many victims to Dahuk, about 45 miles to the north. At least 40 others were wounded, said Brig. Gen. Rahim al-Jibouri, commander of Tal Afar police.

Read the rest at Yahoo News

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