Iraq PM in Mosul for offensive against al Qaeda

By Khalid al-Ansary and Waleed Ibrahim

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki flew to the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday to oversee a big offensive against al Qaeda in what the U.S. military says is the group's last major urban stronghold in Iraq.

Iraqi military officials hope the operation will deliver a knockout blow to the Sunni Islamist militants in northern Iraq. The campaign, which is being led by Iraqi security forces, commenced on Saturday.

"This operation will purge Mosul of criminal and terrorist gangs and end the suffering they have brought to people," Maliki said in a statement.

Al Qaeda militants have regrouped in northern Iraq after being pushed out of Baghdad and their former stronghold of western Anbar province by U.S. and Iraqi forces.

But U.S. military commanders have warned that the group, while weakened, still has the capability to carry out attacks.

In violence on Wednesday that bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda, a suicide bomber killed 20 people and wounded dozens at a funeral west of Baghdad being attended by Sunni Arab tribesmen opposed to the militant group, police said.

And a teenaged girl blew herself up outside an Iraqi army post south of Baghdad, killing one soldier, the U.S. military said. A military spokeswoman said the girl was between 16 and 18 years old. Seven Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the attack.

Iraqi military officials said some 500 suspected insurgents had been detained in raids in Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province so far. Vehicle curfews have been imposed.