A suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives outside an Iraqi army and police base in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing one soldier and wounding 30 other people, police said.

The toll of dead and wounded was only preliminary, and likely to rise, said a police source, who declined to be named. He said 15 of the wounded were police.

Bombings and shootings by gunmen are still common in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, despite a sharp fall in violence elsewhere in Iraq in the last year.

In other developments, Iraq planned to create an atomic energy agency nearly three decades after Israeli bombers destroyed a reactor being built by Saddam Hussein, the government spokesman said.

Ali al-Dabbagh said the government has decided to create a national nuclear energy commission that will be responsible for controlling nuclear activities in the country and assuring they are in line with international regulations.

He added it will also deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAE) and other institutions, make suggestions on the peaceful use of atomic energy and be charged with disposing of nuclear waste.

In 1976, Iraq and France signed an accord to build a nuclear reactor. Five years later, as the Iraq-Iran war raged and amid fears the nearly completed reactor might be loaded with nuclear fuel, it was bombed and heavily damaged by Israeli warplanes.

There is still nuclear waste at that plant, 19 kilometres (12 miles) south of Baghdad, which must be disposed of.

In February, Iraqi Electricity Minister Karim Wahid asked France to help the country build a new reactor.

Agencies