Woman bomber kills 17 Iraqi police recruits

Baghdad, Apr 10: A woman suicide bomber today killed 17 police recruits outside an Iraqi police station northeast of Baghdad 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 Islamic gown 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.

Four US soldiers were killed yesterday, putting April on course to be the deadliest for troops this year as more American and Iraqi forces deploy under a two-month-old security plan.

The latest deaths bring to about 45 the number of US troops killed in Iraq this month, half of them in the Baghdad area. Between 80 and 85 soldiers were killed in each of the first three months of the year, according to military figures.

US President George W Bush is sending 30,000 additional American soldiers to Iraq to bolster an offensive against militants in Baghdad that many regard as a last-ditch attempt to halt Iraq's spiral into all-out sectarian war.

A key element of Operation Imposing Law is getting more US troops on the streets and assigned to dozens of joint security stations with Iraqi forces across the capital.

Three of the US soldiers were killed and another was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in Baghdad yesterday.

Another was killed in volatile western Anbar province, heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency.

The US military acknowledges the Baghdad security plan has increased the likelihood of more troop deaths.

''With more troops on the streets, there is more chance of casualties,'' said Lieutenant-Colonel Josslyn Aberle, a spokeswoman for US forces in Iraq. GROWING RIFT Al Qaeda has been blamed for most attacks on police and army recruitment centres during the Iraq conflict. The last major attack was in December when ten people were killed at a police recruitment centre in Baghdad.

The attack on the police station coincides with a growing rift between home-grown Sunni Arab insurgents and al Qaeda, which is largely driven by foreign fighters.

Some of Iraq's biggest insurgent groups have begun to criticise Sunni Islamist al Qaeda for attacks on Sunni civilians. Sunni tribal leaders are also battling al Qaeda in Sunni provinces west and north of Baghdad.

They are angered by al Qaeda's indiscriminate killing of civilians and the militant movement's strict interpretation of Islam in areas where they hold sway.

While Iraq has a new US-trained army, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government is still heavily dependent on American firepower and logistical support.

Bush has insisted US troops will not leave until Iraqis can take over security and has repeatedly rejected setting a timetable for withdrawal.

More than 3,290 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed.

Reuters