Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq     

    MOSUL, Iraq, July 18 (Xinhua) -- A suicide car bomb struck an Iraqi army patrol in Nineveh province on Friday, killing three soldiers and injuring seven others, a provincial police source said.

    The incident occurred in the afternoon when the suicide bomber drove his booby-trapped car into the patrol in the Fuleifil village in the town of Tilkeaf, some 25 km north of the provincial capital Mosul, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    The powerful blast resulted in the killing of three soldiers, wounding of seven others while destroying two of the patrol's vehicles and damaging ten nearby civilian cars, the source said.

    Iraqi security forces immediately sealed off the main roads leading to the scene and began to evacuate the casualties, he added.

    Nineveh province, including its capital Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, was believed to be one of the last strongholds of al-Qaida fighters in the war-torn country.

    The U.S. and Iraqi security forces have been staging a major security crackdown in Nineveh to uproot al-Qaida militants and other anti-U.S. insurgents.