Truck bomb kills eight in northern Iraq

A suicide truck bomber attacked an Iraqi army observation post in the northern town of Tall Afar, killing four troops and four bystanders, police say.

The attacker ploughed a truck laden with explosives into the wall of a house used as a lookout by soldiers in the Al Salam district of Tall Afar, which US President George W Bush once hailed as a model for a peaceful Iraq.

The army could not immediately confirm the police report, but Defence Ministry spokesman Ibrahim Shaker said an earlier suicide attack on Thursday on a Tall Afar military recruitment centre had killed two people and wounded 11.

Last month, a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt killed 21 people in a fuel queue in the restive city, which was once known as a haven for Sunni insurgents opposed to Iraq's US-backed coalition government.

The string of attacks has been a blow for US attempts to pacify Iraq, more than three years after they invaded the country and overthrew Saddam Hussein's autocratic regime.

In March, Mr Bush praised a US-led security operation and boasted that Tall Afar "is today a free city that gives reason for hope for a free Iraq".

However since that speech, bloody violence has spread across the country, pitting Sunnis versus Shiites, Arabs versus Kurds and insurgents against government and coalition troops.

Iraqi and United Nations officials estimate that more than 100 people are killed every day.

- AFP