Deadliest bomb in Iraq war kills 152

By Mussab Al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi government raised the death toll on Saturday from a lorry bomb this week in the town of Tal Afar to 152, making it the deadliest single bombing of the four-year-old conflict.

Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier Abdul Kareem Khalaf told a news conference that 347 people were wounded in Tuesday's attack on a Shi'ite area. There was another, small lorry bomb in the mixed northwestern town on the same day.

Khalaf said 100 homes had been destroyed in the main blast, which officials have blamed on al Qaeda. The explosion left a 23-metre (75-ft)-wide crater.

"It took us a while to recover all the bodies from underneath the rubble of the homes ... what did they achieve by using two tonnes of explosive to kill and wound 500 in a residential area?" Khalaf asked at a news conference.

Tal Afar mayor Najim Abdullah Jibouri said he believed the ministry number was exaggerated, putting the death toll at around 100.

Durad Kashmula, the governor of Nineveh province, which includes Tal Afar, as well as the provincial police chief said they agreed with the Interior Ministry.

The past week has been the bloodiest in Iraq since the government launched a security crackdown in Baghdad in February aimed at halting the country's slide towards civil war.

Bombings blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda have killed 400 people in Shi'ite areas across the country in the past week.