Suicide bombing targeting Iraqi police recruits kills 40, wounds at least 75
Posted January 18, 2011 5:03 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
BAGHDAD – A suicide bomber blew himself up Tuesday in a crowd of people waiting to apply for jobs with the police, killing at least 40, officials said, in the latest strike against Iraqi security recruits.
The death toll was still rising more than two hours after police said the bomber joined a crowd of about 100 recruits outside the police station in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, some 80 miles (130 kilometres) north of Baghdad.
Loudspeakers from the city’s mosques were calling on people to donate blood for the wounded.
One Tikrit policeman said at least two of the dead were police officers. A second police officer said a grenade that had not exploded was found near the scene.
The casualties were confirmed by Dr. Anas Abdul Khaliq of Tikrit hospital.
The group of recruits was the first to vie for 2,000 new police jobs that Iraq’s Interior Ministry recently approved for the surrounding Salahuddin province, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims. They were waiting for interviews and medical checks as part of the application process, police said.
Both policemen spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Insurgents have long found recruitment centres a favourite target, taking advantage of lax security measures just outside protective barriers at police stations and the confusion caused by desperate jobseekers vying for work in a country with an unemployment rate as high as 30 per cent.
The attack starkly displayed Iraqi forces’ failure to plug even the most obvious holes in their security as the U.S. military prepares to withdraw from Iraq at the year’s end.
A similar strike on a recruitment centre in central Baghdad last August left 61 dead and 125 wounded in what was one of the deadliest attacks of the summer.
