Six car bombs, clashes kill 20 in Iraq's Mosul

By Ziad al-Taei from Reuters

"MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Six suicide bombers including one in a fuel truck blew themselves up near police stations and U.S. forces in the Iraqi city of Mosul on Thursday in violence that killed at least 20 people.
Another car bomb in the northern city of Kirkuk killed at least eight people and wounded 70 people in an attack aimed at an Iraqi army patrol in a crowded market area.
U.S. Major General William Caldwell said the Mosul attacks by suicide bombers in vehicles were aimed at three Iraqi police stations and two U.S. patrols in the city, which is a flashpoint of insurgent activity north of Baghdad.
Nine charred bodies lay on the debris-strewn streets after the fuel truck attack, which killed 11 people. Shortly after the explosion, insurgents fired mortar shells at another police center and clashed with police. Nine more people were killed in the violence, police said.
Caldwell declined to say whether any U.S. forces were killed in the attacks, which come a day after the U.S. military announced the deaths of 11 U.S. soldiers in one of the bloodiest days in the war for U.S. troops.(...)"