Suicide bomber kills 15 at Iraq police academy

BAGHDAD: A suicide bomber killed 15 Iraqis arriving at a police recruitment centre in central Baghdad on Thursday, the US military said, in the latest attack to strike security forces in the war-torn capital.

Elsewhere in the capital, two women were killed while out shopping when mortars rained down on a marketplace in southwest Baghdad, and a bomb targeting a police patrol in the north of the city wounded a bystander, police said.

The bomber, wearing an explosive vest, struck at sunrise in a street outside a police academy in the heart of the Iraqi capital that has been barred to vehicle traffic, security officials said.

Fifteen people were killed, including three police officers and 12 recruits at the college, the US military quoted Iraqi police reports as saying.

Since 2004, before the traffic ban was put in place, the police academy near Palestine Street in the Rusafa district came under attack three times -- by car bomb, mortar and a suicide bomber.

A bomber in a suicide vest in October last year killed 17 people when he blew himself up on a bus dropping police cadets off at the academy.

Since then security has been improved in the area, which is near the main interior ministry headquarters, but the capital remains in the grip of mounting insurgent and sectarian violence.

After each attack the academy has been reopened and continues to attract a steady stream of recruits for one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.