A suicide car bomb attack targeted a police station on Friday morning in the city of Mosul, the capital of the northern Nineveh province, killing 4 policemen and wounding 17 people, a provincial police source said.

The attack took place at about 7:00 A.M. (0400 GMT) when a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into the Waqqass police station in central the city and blew it up, Brigadier Khalid Abdul Sattar, spokesman of Nineveh's police operations office told Xinhua.

The powerful blast destroyed parts of the police station's building, along with several number of nearby houses and shops, Sattar said.

The source put the policemen death toll at 4 and 17 people wounded, including 10 policemen.

Iraqi security forces immediately cordoned off the area to secure the scene, while ambulances and rescue teams were evacuating casualties to the city hospitals, he added.

Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, has been the hotbed of insurgency since the US-led invasion in 2003.

(Xinhua News Agency March 7, 2008)