December 6, 2005
David Fickling and agencies
The Guardian
At least 27 people were killed when two female suicide bombers blew themselves up in a police academy classroom in east Baghdad today, the US military said.
Military officials reported that around 32 people were injured after the bombers detonated their explosives in the middle of a training class. Iraqi police said one bomb had exploded in a cafeteria, while the other went off during roll call.
Police Lieutenant Ali Mi'tab said the women were probably students at the academy - the reason they were not searched. Five other female police officers were among the dead, he added.
Training and recruitment courses for police and security forces have been a regular target of militants since the end of the Iraq war.
Many Sunnis see the police as being dominated by Shia Muslims, and more militant extremists are believed to want to weaken state forces generally.
In September, a Baghdad police academy was targeted by a suicide bomber who killed seven people and wounded 30. More than 20 died in a suicide attack on a graduation ceremony in south Baghdad in January.
A suicide attack on a police recruitment centre in the neighbouring northern province of Irbil in May claimed at least 60 lives.
Iraq's first female suicide bomber of the insurgency also struck in September, when she pushed her way into an army recruitment centre in the northern Iraqi town of Talafar.
Last week, it was revealed that a female suicide bomber who died during a November attack in Baghdad was Muriel Degauque, a 38-year-old Belgian convert to Islam,.
On Monday, the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, admitted the insurgency had been stronger than anticipated but said the media had focused on the war's growing death toll rather than the "progress" he claimed had been made.
"To be responsible, one needs to stop defining success in Iraq as the absence of terrorist attacks," Mr Rumsfeld added.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1659511,00.html