At least 36 Iraqi police officers and cadets were killed on Tuesday in a double suicide bombing in Baghdad, as the chilling trial of Saddam Hussein continued ahead of a crunch general election.
The massive blast — on the same day that eight other Iraqi security personnel were killed in violence across the country — raised concerns about security just nine days before the country goes to the polls.
”Two females, each wearing a suicide vest, walked into a classroom at the academy and detonated in the midst of students,” the statement said.
It was unclear how the women managed to breach the massive security in place around the Baghdad police academy in a zone controlled by the United States military in the volatile Iraqi capital.
Women, however, are not always subject to the same stringent security checks as men in largely conservative Iraq where it is deemed inappropriate for male guards to frisk women or girls.
Police said that 36 officers and students were killed, with 72 other people injured when the women blew themselves up in a classroom.
The deadly blast came three days after 19 Iraqi soldiers were killed in an ambush just north of the Sunni Muslim flashpoint town of Baquba on Saturday.
Amid a spike in kidnappings of foreigners in Iraq, the Islamic Army in Iraq claimed the kidnapping of an American who they said they would kill in 48 hours unless all prisoners are released in Iraq, al-Jazeera television said.
The Qatar-based satellite television showed a videotape of a blond man with his arms behind his back seated on a white plastic chair, and the cover of a US passport and a bank account card with the name Ronald Schulz.
Al-Jazeera said the group, a Sunni Arab extremist group that has claimed several kidnappings and murders, claimed the hostage was a security advisor to Iraq’s housing and construction ministry
They threatened to kill him with 48 hours unless all prisoners are released and unless compensation is paid to the restive western province of al-Anbar that has been the scene of several US offensives against insurgents.
South of Baghdad, police uncovered nine bodies of civilians shot dead near a Shi’ite town, as 11 Iraqis, eight of them from the security services, died in other shootings and ambushes.
Homegrown Iraqi security forces are said to number around 210 000, but government officials have repeatedly warned against the danger of a premature withdrawal of foreign troops from the country.
The insurgency that continues to plague Iraq more than two years since the US-led invasion to oust Saddam has frequently targeted security forces in a bid to derail efforts to restore a semblance of security.
Approximately 160 000 US troops are based in Iraq, with mounting calls back home for a sharp reduction in US force levels over the next year.
The bombing came as the gripping trial of Iraq’s deposed dictator over a Shi’ite massacre 23 years ago continued with further chilling evidence from a witness testifying from behind a curtain.
Mesmerising the world with disturbing accounts of torture from witnesses and angry tirades from Saddam blasting the legality of the proceedings, the Iraqi courtroom drama has been hailed the ”trial of the century” by the local media.
Saddam, for decades one of the most feared leaders in the Middle East before being ousted by invading US-led troops in 2003, is on trial with seven henchmen for the massacre of 148 people from the Shi’ite village of Dujail in 1982.
He and his seven deputies, who have pleaded not guilty, face the death penalty by hanging if convicted over the killings, which followed an assassination bid against the ex-dictator during a visit to the village.
The woman told how a man in an ”operation room” at an intelligence headquarters ordered her to remove her clothes before pistol whipping her and lashing her with cables.
Just metres away on the other side of the court room, relayed television footage showing a silent Saddam sitting in the dock, his eyes blinking.
Shi’ites have criticised the slow progress of the trial as they prepare for the December 15 election to choose the first four-year post-Saddam Parliament.
Much of the success of the election, apart from the security aspect, is likely to hinge on turnout among the Sunni community which boycotted Iraq’s first free election in decades last January.
On Tuesday, the Committee of Muslim Scholars, Iraq’s main Sunni religious authority, announced it has decided not to participate in this month’s general election but stopped short of calling for a boycott.
The organisation ”respects the choice of Iraqis on whether or not to participate in the elections”, said spokesperson Sheikh Abdel Salam al-Qubeissi.
About 15-million Iraqis are eligible to vote for a 275-member Parliament. – AFP
