Two Attacks Kill 14 Iraqis, Wound 49

A number of humanitarian groups withdrew their international staff after deadly bombings against the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations in Baghdad last year.

Witnesses to the attack on the police station in Mosul, 225 miles north of Baghdad, said what appeared to be a suicide attacker drove through a security barricade in front of the police station before blowing up his vehicle. Iraqi officials confirmed a car bomb but were unsure if the driver detonated the explosive from inside or parked and fled.

Saturday was a pay day and the station was crowded with staff at the time of the midmorning bombing, said police Lt. Mohammed Fadil. Five of the dead were police and the others were Iraqi civilians, policeman Khalid Ahmed said.

Severed limbs, some of them smoldering, and decapitated bodies littered the bloodied street after the attack, the sixth major vehicle bombing in Iraq in the past two weeks but the first in Mosul, the country's third-largest city and the principal metropolis in the north.

The blast gouged a huge crater in the street and shattered windows of nearby buildings. Pieces of burning car wreckage spewed acrid, black smoke. At least five cars were destroyed.

Stunned survivors stumbled down the street, their clothing soaked in blood. American soldiers in full combat gear hurried to the scene and cordoned the area. No U.S. troops were near at the time of the blast.

"I fell to the ground and hit my head," said Lt. Ahmed Abdul Kader, 30, who was inside the police station. "I couldn't get up. There were people with horrible injuries all around me."

Policeman Bassil Shehab, who suffered extensive facial burns and shrapnel injuries, called the attack a "criminal act to kill innocent people. They have no religion, and no faith," he said of the attackers. "Nothing will stop me from going back to work even if something worse happens."

Police stations have been the frequent targets of insurgents fighting U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime last April. Many of the attacks have been carried out with car bombings and roadside bombs that have killed scores of civilians.

In the deadliest insurgent attack since the capture of Saddam on Dec. 13, a suicide car bombing Jan. 18 at the gates of the U.S.-led coalition headquarters in Baghdad left at least 31 people dead and more than 120 injured.

Four people, including a South African, died Wednesday when a suicide driver in a van disguised as an ambulance blew up his vehicle in front of a Baghdad hotel frequented by Westerners.

U.S. officials have pointed to the rash of vehicle bombings as evidence that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network may be trying to gain a foothold in Iraq. Although most attacks are believed carried out by Saddam loyalists, suspicion of al-Qaida involvement has risen with the arrest this month of a top al-Qaida operative, Hassan Ghul, who was captured by U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters as he tried to enter the country from Iran.