BAGHDAD, Dec 21 (AFP) - About 22 people were killed and more than 50 injured in a blast at a US military base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Tuesday, US media reported, citing Pentagon officials.
The attack, which occured on the day British Prime Minister Tony Blair was visiting Iraq, was claimed by the Al-Qaeda linked Army of Ansar al-Sunna group, according to a statement on an Islamist website.
Fox News reported that three rockets attacked a dining hall on the base during lunch, causing multiple casualties.
CNN said that those killed included US troops, Iraqi forces and other employees working at the base.
"At 12 pm (0900 GMT) today an explosion occurred at a US military installation in Mosul causing multiple casualties. The cause of the explosion is under investigation," the military in Baghdad said in a statement.
No other details were immediately available and it was not clear how many of the dead may have been US troops.
Iraq`s intelligence chief Mohammed Abdullah al-Shahwani has said that Mosul has been turned into a major base for militants linked to Jordanian-born Islamic radical Abu Musab Zarqawi, Iraq`s most wanted man.
Ansar al-Sunna splintered away from another radical group, called Ansar al-Islam, both of which are believed to have links with Zarqawi.
"One of the mujahedeen of the Army of Ansar al-Sunna carried out a martyrdom-seeking (suicide) operation in a restaurant of the infidel occupation forces at the Ghazlani camp in Mosul," said the website statement from the group, whose authenticity could not be independently confirmed.
Mosul, 370 kilometres (250 miles) north of Baghdad, once considered a success story of the defunct US occupation in Iraq, has been transformed into a battleground between insurgents and US forces.
The city, home to Islamists and staunch loyalists of the ousted Baath party regime, was the site of almost daily assassination attempts on suspected US collaborators before the city boiled over in violence last month.
On June 24, insurgents mounted a one-day street battle against US forces and set off five car bombs, killing more than 50 people, in a prelude to November`s fierce uprising by insurgents.
The US military has been conducting operations in Mosul, Iraq`s third largest city, since coordinated attacks by insurgents on the city`s police stations prompted most of the local police force to quit on November 11.
Around 80 bodies have been found in and around Mosul since the beginning of December, most of which authorities say belong to security forces executed by insurgents.
Christian churches in the city have also come under attack by insurgents.
Mosul, whose name in Arabic means the link, is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in Iraq with Arabs, Syriac people, Armenians, Kurds, Turkmen, Jews, Christians, Muslims and Yazedis all calling the city home.
Sunni Muslims in Mosul, together with the minority Turkmen community, fear Kurdish calls for an expanded autonomous region in districts immediately bordering the northern metropolis, a city of about 1.5 million people.
12/21/2004 15:38 GMT - AFP