BAGHDAD, July 29: A suicide bomber blew himself up amidst a group of army recruits in northern Iraq on Friday, killing 25 people and wounding 35, In Baghdad, Sunnis staged a protest against alleged government torture.

Police said the attack on the recruitment centre occurred outside a municipal building in Rabia, a town 80kms northwest of Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city and a focus of an 18-month-old campaign against US-backed Iraqi security forces. American and Iraqi forces killed nine guerillas, five of whom they described as Syrians, in a village northwest of the capital, a US military statement said.—Reuters