Asiacell building bombed in Iraq city of Mosul

MOSUL, Iraq Feb 3 (Reuters) - Militants have bombed an Asiacell equipment building near the Iraqi city of Mosul, damaging the mobile phone operator's network and knocking out service in some northern areas, police and officials said on Friday.

The attackers, some of whom wore military uniforms, held guns to the heads of security guards late on Thursday and planted four large explosives in the building, which houses routing and switching equipment, Asiacell chief executive Diar Ahmed said.

"One of them exploded and caused severe damage to the network. The other three were dismantled," Ahmed said.

No one was hurt in the blast, he said.

Ahmed said the centre, located in a normally safe area in a Mosul free trade zone, just 60-70 metres from a police station, serves Nineveh province and parts of neighbouring Dahuk. Work crews hoped to restore service later on Friday, he said.

"It's a partial outage in (Nineveh) province but it's the majority to be honest," he said.

Asiacell is a unit of Qatar Telecom.

Nearly nine years after the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, Iraq is plagued by Sunni Islamist insurgents and Shi'ite militias that launch scores of bombings and other attacks each month.

Security is one of the key concerns of foreign companies looking to invest in Iraq.

Tensions rose in mid-December as the last of the U.S. troops departed when the Shi'ite-led government moved against two prominent Sunni politicians, threatening Iraq's fragile power-sharing government and raising fears of renewed sectarian conflict.

Abdul-Rahim al-Shimmari, head of the Nineveh provincial council's security committee, said the Asiacell building was hit by four attackers who threatened the guards with guns and bound them before planting explosives which damaged communications equipment and a tower.

Ahmed said he suspected the al Qaeda-affiliated insurgent group Islamic State of Iraq was behind the attack. Mosul is considered an al Qaeda stronghold.

"The ISI has threatened our offices and our employees in Mosul many, many times because we work with the government," he said. (Reporting by Jamal al-Badrani in Mosul; Writing by Jim Loney)