IRAQ:A suicide bomber wearing a police uniform assassinated a top police officer in the northern city of Mosul yesterday as he inspected the site of a huge blast that hours earlier had killed at least 36 and wounded more than 150.
The two explosions appeared to cement the reputation of Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, as one of the last remaining urban redoubts of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
US commanders in Baghdad were last night asked by officials in the city to send reinforcements to the area immediately.
Khasro Goran, the deputy governor of Mosul, said that brigadier-general Salih Mohammed Hasan Atiya al-Jubouri, the acting police chief of Nineveh province, had been killed along with two police officers as they inspected the site of the earlier explosion in the Shingeli area.
As local residents and security officials dug through mountains of rubble in search of survivors, a man in a police uniform approached the police chief from behind and detonated a vest packed with TNT, the deputy governor said.
Some reports said the attack occurred after a group of angry residents had forced Mr al-Jubouri and his entourage to retreat to their cars.
Brig-Gen Al-Jubouri died on his way to hospital.
An Iraqi journalist and a US soldier were said to be among six injured.
Mr Goran said the commander of the Iraqi army's second division had also been present, but that he "remained safe".
He said yesterday's attack was "a big blow" against Iraqi security forces' efforts to secure Mosul, but they remained determined to rid the city of jihadists, whose operations have been disrupted elsewhere in Iraq by a combination of "awakening" groups and the US troop surge.
"The last battle will be here [ in Mosul]," he said.
The first explosion occurred on Wednesday after Iraqi security forces surrounded an apartment block, acting on a tip-off that it was being used as a weapons cache by al-Qaeda insurgents.
Major-Gen Mark Hertling, commander of US forces in northern Iraq, said that an estimated 115 tonnes of ordinance had been hidden there.
He said it appeared Iraqi soldiers had triggered the huge explosion when they detonated a roadside bomb found nearby. Women and children were among the victims.
Located along major transport routes west to Syria and south to the Sunni triangle, Mosul is a logistical and financial hub for insurgents.
Its 1.7 million population is dominated by Sunni Arabs, but there is a significant Kurdish community.
Thousands of Kurds have been forced out by violence from Islamic extremist groups based in the city, Kurdish leaders say.