Bomb explodes at US-Iraqi base in Mosul, 30 dead

MOSUL, Iraq, Mar 27 (Reuters) At least 30 people were killed in a bomb blast inside a joint U.S.-Iraq base in Mosul today, police said.

An Interior Ministry source said the explosion targeted Iraqi army recruits and may have been carried out by a suicide bomber strapped with explosives but it was not immediately possible to verify this. No further details were available.

In December 2004 a suicide bomber wearing Iraqi uniform blew himself up at a U.S. armed forces mess tent in Mosul, killing 21 people, among them 14 U.S. troops and four other Americans.

It was not immediately clear if Monday's explosion took place at the same site.

The blast occurred one day after 20 people were shot dead in the Mustafa mosque near Sadr City in Baghdad in what some Shi'ite leaders said was a massacre of worshippers by U.S.

troops. Police and residents said the killings resulted from a clash between American and Shi'ite militia men.

REUTERS SY PC1637