“The death toll from… car bombing in Mosul rose to 22 soldiers and three passers-by, while 17 soldiers and 12 passers-by were wounded,” a local police source in Mosul who spoke on condition of anonymity said on Monday.

The attacker drove a vehicle packed with explosives up to an Iraqi army convoy in eastern Mosul, which is located north of the capital.

In the capital, Baghdad, and the nearby town of Taji, a group of gunmen attacked two prisons during the late hours of Sunday. More than two dozen Iraqi security forces were killed in the attacks.

Initial reports said the attacks on prisons had been foiled, and no casualties had been reported.

A source in Iraqi Interior Ministry said dozens of gunmen using rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, bombs and assault rifles tried to storm a prison in Taji, north of Baghdad, and Abu Ghraib prison, which is to the west of the capital, Xinhua reported.

The coordinated attacks lasted about 10 hours.

Iraqi security official Hakim al-Zamily said between 500 to 1,000 prisoners had managed to escape from Abu Ghraib.

Security forces in Iraq are under intense scrutiny for failure to contain the recent wave of violence across the country.

Prisons in Iraq are periodically hit by escape attempts, uprisings and other forms of unrest.

Last year, a prison riot in the northern city of Tikrit led to the jailbreak of more than 200 detainees. A number of policemen were also killed during the incident.

A wave of violence began on April 23 when militants invaded security checkpoints near the town of Hawijah in north Iraq, sparking clashes in which 53 people were killed.

Dozens more died in subsequent unrest, including attacks targeting security forces in Kirkuk, Nineveh, Diyala and Anbar provinces, raising fears of a return to the all-out conflict that took the lives of tens of thousands of people from 2006 to 2008.

NTJ/SHI