Multiple bombings kill 40 in northern Iraq

Bombers killed around 40 people and wounded scores in several attacks in northern Iraq yesterday, days after the government vowed to expand a crackdown against militants in a region where al Qaeda retains influence.

In the worst attacks, two suicide bombers killed 27 people and wounded 68 when they blew themselves up outside an army recruitment centre in Baquba, 65 kilometres northeast of Baghdad, an Iraqi security source said.

The US military said 20 recruits were killed and 55 wounded, saying the attackers blew themselves up in a line of men outside the centre in Baquba, capital of Diyala province.

Sunni Islamist al Qaeda has sought to stoke tensions in Iraq's ethnically and religiously mixed northern cities, such as Diyala and Mosul, after military campaigns pushed its militants out of former strongholds in western Anbar province and Baghdad.

It has often targeted Iraqi forces and new recruits.

Iraqi security forces are poised to launch a major crackdown in Diyala, the Interior Ministry said on Sunday, the latest military operation aimed at stabilising the country. A similar strike against al Qaeda in Mosul has helped cut violence there by half since it was launched in May, the US military says.

The attack on the recruitment centre follows a string of bombings in Diyala province.

Hours after those attacks, three bomb blasts hit the northern city of Mosul, capital of Nineveh province.

In the worst attack, a suicide car bomber killed eight people and wounded a policeman at a police checkpoint, the US military said. Police sources put the death toll at five.

Recent bombings could be al Qaeda's way of showing it is still a threat, despite improving security, US officials say.

"What's happening here is the enemy knows the government and security forces are getting stronger," said Major Peggy Kageleiry, a spokesperson for the US military in northern Iraq.

The Interior Ministry has not given a date for the start of the Diyala crackdown but says US forces, which have been conducting operations there since January, will take part.

A witness described devastation in Baquba.

"An explosion shook everything. I saw chunks of flesh scattered everywhere and some recruits were calling for their friends," said wounded recruit Nadhim Hameed, 19.

"There were people on the ground with blood stains on them - it was chaos. Then another bomb exploded and I woke up here."

Reuters television footage showed men and women weeping over bodies wrapped in white shrouds at a local hospital. Medical staff rushed around with stretchers to treat the wounded.

The Diyala crackdown will be the latest Iraqi-led offensive aimed at stamping government authority on areas once in the hands of Sunni Arab insurgents or Shi'ite militias.

Other operations have targeted Shi'ite militias in the southern provinces of Basra and Maysan.

Falls in violence are due to a US troop build-up, a rebellion by Sunni Arab tribal leaders against al Qaeda and a truce by anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.