A suicide car bomb attack killed an Iraqi soldier and wounded six people in Mosul, the capital city of Iraq's northern province of Nineveh, on Sunday, a provincial police source told Xinhua.
"A suicide bomber blew up his explosive-laden car near a joint police and Iraqi army checkpoint in a neighborhood in western Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad," the source from Nineveh's operations command said on condition of anonymity.
A soldier was killed and another wounded by the powerful blast, which also resulted in the wounding of a policeman and four civilians, the source said.
The blast also set several civilian cars on fire and caused severe damages to nearby buildings, he said.
Nineveh province and its capital Mosul have long been a stronghold for insurgent groups, including al-Qaida militants. The province has been the scene of major security crackdowns by the U. S. troops and Iraqi security forces to uproot the insurgency which erupted shortly after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.