[Al Arabiya Latest] A spate of attacks targeting Iraqi security forces and their allies killed at least 10 people on Thursday, half in suicide bombings in the northern city of Mosul, officials said.The noontime suicide attacks targeted a police checkpoint and an Iraqi army camp on opposite sides of Mosul, a city long considered al-Qaida's last stronghold in Iraq.
A third attack west of the city was thwarted when police opened fire on a suicide car bomb speeding toward a cattle market in the nearby town of Tal Afar, blowing it up, according to a Mosul police officer
Iraq's security forces are frequently targeted as the American military prepares to end its combat mission in Iraq this summer, even as overall violence around the country has dropped sharply from when Iraq teetered on the brink of civil war in 2005-07.
The worst of Thursday's attacks came at a police checkpoint in the western al-Shefah neighborhood in Mosul, about 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad.
Police said a suicide bomber with explosives strapped around his body blew himself up near the checkpoint around 12:30 p.m., killing four policemen and wounding four others. The casualties were confirmed by Saad Abdul-Moneim, a Mosul morgue official.
A half-hour earlier, two men detonated their explosives belts outside the main gate of an Iraqi army camp in eastern Mosul's Kokjali neighborhood. The police official and Abdul-Moneim said one soldier was killed and five more wounded in the blast. It was not known if the attacks were coordinated.
Mosul has long been known as an al-Qaida recruiting ground for Sunni insurgents and suicide bombers. It sits on one of Iraq's political and ethnic fault lines, being home to Sunni Arab, Christian and Kurdish communities.
The ability of insurgents to target Iraqi security forces with relative ease raises worries about their ability to defend themselves and protect the country as all but 50,000 American troops leave by Aug. 31 -- the first step toward a full American military withdrawal by the end of next year.
Meanwhile, a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad killed two policemen on a late morning patrol and wounded four others, said a police official and a medic at the nearby Kindi hospital. Four bystanders also were injured, the officials said.
Another roadside bomb targeted the convoy of Karar Hassan, a director-general in the Industry Ministry in Baghdad, wounding him, three bodyguards and a bystander, officials said.
Gunmen wearing military uniforms also stormed a house in the Sulaybi village near Duluiyah, north of Baghdad, killing two brothers who were members of government-backed Sunni militias that fight al-Qaida in Iraq along with one of their wives, police and hospital officials said.