Iraq police shoot female bomber in foiled attack

BAGHDAD, June 5 (Reuters) A female suicide bomber's explosives-packed belt blew up today when she was shot by police as she tried to attack a Baghdad recruitment centre, Iraqi officials said.

''Police killed a terrorist wearing an explosives belt. She was targeting the recruitment centre,'' an Iraqi Defence Ministry statement said.

The woman was wearing a traditional black abaya, or full-length cloak, under which the suicide belt was hidden, police said.

She refused orders to stop as she approached the Interior Ministry recruitment centre in Sadr al-Qanat in northern Baghdad, police said.

Police fired several shots into the air but she still would not stop, so officers fired directly at her. The belt she was wearing detonated when she was hit, wounding three police commandos, police said.

Suicide bombings are an almost daily occurrence in Iraq, with police and army recruitment centres often targeted, but attacks by women are relatively uncommon.

In April, a female bomber killed 17 Iraqi police recruits in Muqdadiya, northeast of Baghdad.

Another female suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives killed 40 people when she blew herself up in the lobby of a Baghdad student college in February.

REUTERS SYU ND1834