Iraq Watch: June 26, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three suicide bombings in the northern city of Mosul, about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, killed at least 33 people and wounded another 19.

In the capital itself a roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and wounded two others. The bombing in the central part of Baghdad occured at about 10:40 a.m.

The first bombing in Mosul hit a downtown police station killing at least 12 people including 10 policemen. The two-story building was heavily damaged in the blast.

The next attacker detonated his explosives-laden vehicle in the parking lot of an Iraqi army base on the outskirts of the city killing 16 and wounding another seven. The AP reports that most of the victims were civilian workers arriving at the site.

The third attack in Mosul targeted police guarding a teaching hospital killing at least five policemen. Another 12 Iraqi police were injured in the suicide bomb blast.

The group al-Qaida in Iraq led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the Mosul attacks in a message posted on an Islamic militant web site.

Elsewhere, six Iraqi soldiers were gunned down near their army base in Sadiyah, 60 miles north of Baghdad.

United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld confirmed reports by London's Sunday Times that American officials have been meeting with representatives of various insurgent groups inside Iraq in an attempt to help quell the violence there.

The Secretary also said Sunday that the insurgency in Iraq could last for years. This statement, along with others recently, seem to directly contradict the May 31 comment made by Vice President Dick Cheney that the insurgency was in its 'last throes.'