A suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives outside an Iraqi base in the northern city of Mosul today, killing five US soldiers and two Iraqi policemen, the US military said.
Iraq's Interior Ministry said the authorities were forewarned of the attack but were unsure when it would happen.
US and Iraqi forces opened heavy fire on the truck after it ignored a request to stop at a checkpoint on the approach to the base.
"The truck exploded 50 metres before reaching its target (the base)," Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Karim Khalaf said, adding that only one Iraqi policeman was killed in the attack.
He could not confirm the US casualties.
"There was more than 1,000 kg of explosives in the truck, which levelled three buildings (near the base)," he added.
The attack was the deadliest for US soldiers in Iraq for months. An insurgency led by al- Qaeda and other militants has proven stubborn in Mosul, 390km north of Baghdad, even as the violence set off by the US-led invasion of 2003 has waned elsewhere in Iraq.
Iraqi police said the blast wounded 70 people and destroyed five Iraqi and two US armoured vehicles.
At least two people suspected of being involved in the attack were detained, and the incident is under investigation, the US military said.
The number of US soldiers killed in action in March was the lowest since the invasion. In February four U.S. soldiers were killed in a single attack.
At least 4,200 US troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since the invasion.
Reuters