At least 17 Iraqis killed, more than 130 hurt in blast

BAGHDAD (AP) — A thunderous blast tore through a vacant apartment building in northern Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 17 civilians and wounding more than 130 in adjacent houses just minutes after the Iraqi army arrived to investigate tips about a weapons cache.v

Rescue crews searched under toppled walls, collapsed ceilings and piles of debris tossed by the explosion that blew apart the empty building, which Iraqi authorities said was used by insurgents to stash weapons and bombs.

The hunt through the wreckage stretched for hours, raising the possibility the final casualty toll could climb. The huge blast went off just after the troops arrived, and no soldier was reported killed.

Instead, the explosion ravaged dozens of old homes and collapsed a three-story building in a mostly Sunni neighborhood in Mosul, about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The blast also reinforced U.S. claims this week that Mosul — Iraq’s third-largest city — is now the last urban center with a strong presence of al-Qaida in Iraq. American and Iraqi forces have been on the offensive against insurgents in and around Baghdad, but Mosul continues to be a center of gravity for al-Qaida in Iraq.

Wednesday’s explosion came shortly after the army received calls that insurgents were using the vacant building as a shelter and a bomb-making factory, according to Brig. Saeed al-Jubouri, a police spokesman.

That raised the possibility that insurgents may have tried to draw the soldiers into a trap.

But Brig. Abdul-Karim al-Jubouri, who heads security operations for the Mosul police, said that — if it were designed as a trap — insurgents would have waited for security forces to get inside the building to kill as many of them as possible.a