5 U.S. soldiers killed in truck bombing in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD (MCT) - A truck bomb killed five U.S. soldiers in northern Iraq and wounded another Friday in one of the worst attacks on U.S. soldiers in more than 11 months.

The explosives-laden truck also killed two Iraqi National Police officers and wounded 17 others, a U.S. military statement said. Iraqi police said that three police officers were killed.

Iraqi police said that the truck carried more than 200 pounds of explosives when it targeted the National Police station in the Mansour neighborhood in southwestern Mosul, a major city in the north. Iraqi police put the number of wounded at 62, 20 of whom were Iraqi National Police.

Two people thought to be connected to the attack were detained, according to the U.S. military.

Nineveh province, where Mosul is situated, is proving to be one of the deadliest for U.S. forces. In February, four U.S. soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter were killed at a checkpoint in Mosul when a suicide bomber blew himself up. Prior to that attack it had been nine months since four Marines were killed in Anbar.

Political tensions are high in Nineveh as Kurds and Arabs vie for control. U.S. officials worry that the friction could easily explode into large-scale violence.

The names of the U.S. soldiers were withheld because the families had not yet been notified of the deaths.