Female suicide bomber shot dead in east Baghdad

Three police recruits lightly injured; would-be bomber was wearing traditional garb as she headed toward recruiting center.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Iraq Bomb Rubble 298 88 (photo credit: AP [file])
Iraq Bomb Rubble 298 88
(photo credit: AP [file])
Police opened fire Tuesday morning on a black-clad woman as she walked toward police recruits, detonating a suicide bomb she had strapped to her body, the Iraqi Interior Ministry reported. "She didn't obey the guards orders to stop and they shot her and she immediately blew up," ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said. She was dead at the scene. Khalaf said the would-be bomber was wearing a black abaya, the traditional Islamic cloak, as she headed toward the recruiting center in the Canal area of eastern Baghdad at about 10 a.m. A police officer at the scene, who asked anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to the media, said three police recruits were lightly injured. Although suicide bombings regularly claim scores of victims in Iraq's sectarian violence, female bombers remain relatively rare. In other violence Monday, a Shi'ite Muslim cleric affiliated with the anti-American Shi'ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr was shot and killed as his drove his automobile in Jibala, a town 65 kilometers south of Baghdad, police said. A police officer identified the victim as Sheik Abdul-Rahim Mohammed Naief, in charge of the al-Sadr office in Jibala. Police and local residents accused Sunni extremists from nearby villages of being behind the 7:30 a.m. attack. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity since he wasn't authorized to speak with the media.