At least 15 people were killed and 8 others injured late Sunday while a rocket slammed into a target in Iraq's northern city of Tikrit, the US military and local hospital said. 

The insurgents launched two rockets and one of them landed near a mosque at about 7:50 PM (1650 GMT), killing 15 and injuring 8 others, a public affairs officer of the US Army's First Infantry Division said.

Dr. Hassan al-Juburi, director of the Tikrit Teaching Hospital, said that the blast hit the three-story Sunubar Hotel, which houses mostly construction workers, and sent the frightened guests running into the street, some barefooted, others with bloodstains on their clothes.

The eight injured included two policemen and all the victims were Iraqis, he added.

Some 130 kilometers north of Baghdad, Tikrit is the hometown of former leader Saddam Hussein and has been one of the centers of the Sunni Muslim insurgency against US occupation.

(Xinhua News Agency November 1, 2004)