Roadside bomb wounds two 6 year-old boys in Ninewa

NINEWA / IraqiNews.com: Two six year-old boys were wounded by a roadside bomb in Mosul on Wednesday, a police source said. “A roadside bomb hidden in a cartoon box went off against two 6 year-old boys playing in al-Tahrir district, east Mosul,” a Ninewa police source said. Mosul, the provincial capital of Ninewa, 400 km north of Baghdad, is viewed by U.S. and Iraqi authorities as one of the last remaining al-Qaida strongholds in Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a two-phase military crackdown in the northern city in May. Ninewa officials said the gains from these operations, however, have disintegrated as militant groups re-entered the city there due to an insufficient number of Iraqi troops to maintain security following operations in May. AM (P)/SR 1