Blast in Iraq's Mosul kills 15 and wounds 132

By Paul Tait and Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 15 people were killed and 132 wounded when a building used by militants to store weapons and tonnes of explosives blew up in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Wednesday, senior security officials said.

Iraqi officials said women and children were among the victims from the blast, which also tore through nearby homes. Heavy equipment had been brought in to dig for survivors.

"There are still people trapped inside the blast site and under rubble," Major-General Mark Hertling, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, told Reuters by telephone.

He said Iraqi soldiers had detonated a roadside bomb they had found, which triggered a "massive secondary" explosion in the building. Explosive experts at the scene estimated 15 tonnes of ordnance had been hidden in the building, Hertling said.

Iraqi security officials had earlier suggested the blast was detonated as police arrived to search the building following what they said was a tip from a detained militant.

Witnesses said it was one of the biggest explosions ever heard in ethnically and religiously mixed Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad. They said a huge plume of smoke rose above the largest city in northern Iraq.

The explosion destroyed the unoccupied three-storey building. Hertling said 12 civilians and three Iraqi soldiers had been killed and that U.S. military medics had been sent to Mosul to help treat the wounded.

Mosul is the capital of Nineveh province, one of Iraq's northern regions where U.S. and Iraqi forces this year have launched offensives against Sunni Islamist al Qaeda fighters who are most often blamed for large-scale bombings in Iraq.