BAGHDAD, 11 April 2007 — A woman suicide bomber killed 17 police recruits outside an Iraqi police station northeast of Baghdad yesterday in the first major attack on volunteers for local security forces this year. A guard at the station and police officials said the woman was wearing an abaya and had been strapped with a belt filled with explosives.
The attack wounded 33 people in the majority Sunni Muslim town of Muqdadiya, 90 km from the capital. “The recruits were bringing along their files and they were intending to line up when all of a sudden there was a big explosion,” the guard said. The woman had been acting suspiciously as she walked among the dozens of recruits, he added.
In central Baghdad, witnesses reported fierce clashes between US and Iraqi forces and gunmen in the Fadhil district of the capital, a Sunni insurgent stronghold. Residents said US helicopters fired on buildings where gunmen had holed up. The US military said there was an ongoing operation in the area and an Apache attack helicopter had been hit by small arms fire in the area. It returned to base.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki yesterday rejected demands by the US Congress for a timetable to pull out US troops, saying the withdrawal should be based on the reality on the ground. Maliki said his government was working to improve security to make it possible for US and other foreign troops to leave. “We see no need for a withdrawal timetable because we are working as fast as we can,” Maliki told a news conference on a visit to Tokyo. “We feel what will govern the departure of the multinational forces are the achievements and victories we manage to obtain on the ground and not a timetable,” he said.
