60 reported dead in Iraq suicide bomb attack

Al-Arabiya television, quoting medical sources, said 60 Iraqis were killed in a suicide attack today at a police recruitment centre in Erbil, a Kurdish city 220 miles north of Baghdad.

An Iraqi carrying hidden explosives entered the centre before setting them off.

Officials put the death toll at eight, with 15 others injured.

As ambulances and taxis raced to the chaotic scene and took casualties to local hospitals, Sadi Ahmed Perah, a senior local official with the Kurdish Patriotic Union party said dozens of people appeared to have been killed or wounded.

Insurgents have stepped up their attacks across Iraq in the last week, often targeting convoys of U.S. and Iraqi troops, and Iraqi police on patrol or at recruitment centres.

A key goal of U.S. troops is to eventually train enough Iraqi security forces to reduce the role now being played by the Americans in fighting the insurgency.