The chief of the Mosul police was attacked on Thursday by gunmen as he was investigating the site of a blast which occurred Wednesday in the city.

Brig. Gen. Falih Mohammed Hassan was attacked around 9:30 a.m. when he entered the site of the blast along with his entourage.

On Wednesday at least 18 people were killed and 150 were injured in a blast which occurred in a poor neighborhood in the western side of Mosul, a northern city in Iraq, in a building which was used as store for ammunition by the insurgents.

The building was located in Al Zinjeli, a crowded neighborhood and the death toll was expected to rise as people were still being pulled out of the rubble form houses nearby and shops.

One of the injured explained how the blast took him and his family by surprise.

Ahmed Mushtaq said that he was in his house along with his family when the explosion occurred around 4:30 p.m. The house was shaken and the windows and doors were blown off. Afterwards the house was invaded by a wave of red smoke and he was hit by a piece of wood and lost conscience, the New York Times informs.

He said: “After that I found myself in the hospital, and my wife and kids were also wounded, and they are with me at the same hospital.”

According to Samir Faraj, a doctor at the Medical City hospital, many of the injured suffered cuts from the broken windows and doors and that many of them lost their arms or legs.

An insurgent captured by Mosul police told them that the building was a bomb factory with explosives.
Brig. Said al-Jubori, spokesman for the police force in Nineveh Province, said that the bombs exploded just as police approached the building.

Iraqi police arrived there before the blast to verify information about a weapons cache.

On Thursday a roadside bomb was detonated and the police chief only suffered minor injuries.

Brig. Said al-Jubori said that a guard was killed in the explosion, Forbes reports.

Even though in the first months of the war Mosul has been relatively quiet, due to the American’s presence in the area, in the fall of 2004 insurgents came to Mosul after they’ve fled Falluja. They’ve carried battles with police force for some parts of the city.

Afterwards it was a period of calm in Mosul, but ever since the American troops withdrew, the violence in the region has been rising again.