Bomb hits Turkish consul's convoy in Iraq, 1 killed

A roadside bomb struck the convoy of Turkey's consul general in Iraq in the northern city of Mosul Monday, killing a civilian and wounding another, police said.

The attack occurred in al-Maliyah district in eastern Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, while the convoy was en route to the city of Erbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous region of Kurdistan, a local police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

"The blast caused damage to the convoy's vehicles, but no one in the convoy was hurt, and the consul general himself is in good health," the source said.

The police are investigating the incident, and it is unclear whether the consul general was targeted or it was an indiscriminate bombing.

A passer-by was killed and another wounded by the blast, the source added.

Mosul is the capital of Nineveh province, which has been a hotbed of insurgency as well as sectarian and ethnic strife since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Violence is still common in the Iraqi cities despite a dramatic decrease since its peak in 2006 and 2007 when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.