Iraq violence continues (Archive photo)
Photo: Sky News
Scores killed in Iraq blast
At least 46 people killed after suicide bomber detonates himself during funeral in Mosul Thursday
A suicide bomber struck a Shiite mosque during a funeral in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Thursday, killing at least 46 people and wounding dozens in a fresh attack against the country's newly-empowered majority.
Mainly Sunni Arab insurgents have staged increasingly audacious attacks on Shiite and official targets in their relentless campaign to topple a U.S. Backed government and stall efforts by the Shiite majority to form a new cabinet.
Four Iraqi soldiers shot dead
Meanwhile, insurgents posing as policemen in Baghdad killed a police chief, after stopping his truck at a fake checkpoint in an attack claimed by al-Qaeda followers.
Later police found the bodies of four Iraqi soldiers shot dead and dumped by insurgents in western Iraq, adding to two grim discoveries of 41 bodies - some shot and others beheaded - in the country's Sunni heartland earlier this week.
Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, with a mixed population of mostly Sunni Arabs and Kurds, has seen a surge in violence since last November when coordinated attacks on police forced them to desert.
Dozens of people with serious injuries were taken to hospital after Thursday's bombing, witnesses said.
Tensions have risen in Iraq's north between the three main groups that populate the area, the Shiites, the Kurds and the Sunnis.
The Kurds, who want to extend an autonomous region in the north, dominate the region and have encouraged those who fled under Saddam Hussein to return home.
