(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-02-11 11:16

The explosion came hours after suspected al-Qaida-linked insurgents stormed two villages near the Syrian border but were repelled by US-allied fighters and Iraqi security forces in clashes that left at least 22 people dead.

Sheik Fawaz al-Jarba, the head of the Mosul anti-al-Qaida group, and other officials said the 22 killed included 10 militants and six members of the so-called awakening group in the area, as well as four women and two children.

The US military in northern Iraq confirmed an attack on compound housing its Sunni allies against al-Qaida in Iraq near Sinjar, about 60 miles west of Mosul, saying five US-allied fighters were killed, five wounded and 10 insurgents were killed.

Insurgents also attacked a group of civilians elsewhere in the northern Ninevah province on Sunday, killing two men and one child and wounding two other men, two women and two infants, according to the military.

Iraqi police also said four civilians were killed Sunday when a tanker truck laden with explosives blew up near an Iraqi army checkpoint on Mosul's southern outskirts.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has promised a "decisive battle" against the terror network in Mosul but given no start date. The US military has warned it will not be a swift strike, but rather a grinding campaign that will require more firepower.

An al-Qaida front group for northern Iraq warned last week in an Internet statement that it was launching its own campaign in Mosul and surrounding areas.

In all, 70 people were reported killed or found dead by police on Sunday, one of the highest nationwide death tolls in recent months. That figure included three policemen who perished in a suicide car bombing at a checkpoint in the Anbar city of Fallujah and 10 bullet-riddled bodies showing signs of torture.

Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a US military spokesman, said the documents released Sunday offered proof that al-Qaida in Iraq had been severely disrupted by the so-called awakening movement and changing US tactics, but he stressed the terror network was by no means defeated.

The military said the two documents were discovered last year by American troops in November as the Sunni movement that began in Anbar province was spreading to Baghdad and surrounding areas.

One was a 39-page memo written by a mid- to high-level al-Qaida official with knowledge of the group's operations in Iraq's western Anbar province; the other a 16-page diary written by another group leader north of Baghdad.

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