Suicide Bomber Strikes at Iraq Blast Site

BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber disguised as a policeman killed an Iraqi police chief and two other officers yesterday as they surveyed the site of the wreckage of a blast a day earlier that devastated a neighborhood in the volatile northern city of Mosul.

Wednesday's explosion obliterated a three-story apartment building and ravaged adjacent houses minutes after the Iraqi army arrived to investigate tips about a weapons cache.

Iraq's oil exports rose 9.2% last year, the Oil Ministry announced yesterday, largely because improved security allowed pumping to resume through a pipeline from northern oil fields.

The rise in 2007 exports reached nearly 600 million barrels, or an average of 1.6 million barrels per day — still short of the estimated 2.5 million barrels a day before the American-led invasion in 2003.