15 killed by Iraq woman bomber

BAGHDAD: A woman suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt blew herself up opposite a police station in Iraq's restive province of Diyala on Tuesday, killing 15 people, a police officer said.

The attack happened in the town of Muqdadiya in a province that is now considered the second most dangerous area of Iraq after Baghdad itself.

The woman, strapped with an explosive belt, approached a group of people outside a kiosk opposite the police station who were seeking recruitment forms to sign up for the police force, said First Lieutenant Mohammed Ahmed.

Civilians and police recruits were among the victims, he added. Seven people were wounded.

Interior ministry spokesman Brigadier General Abdul Karim Khalaf confirmed from Baghdad that a woman dressed in the traditional, all-enveloping black abaya had blown herself up in the mixed Shiite-Sunni Muslim town.

The attack was the latest evidence of stepped up sectarian and insurgent killings outside Baghdad where a massive US-Iraqi security crackdown, now into an eighth week, has seen American officials boast about signs of progress.

Diyala, in particular, has been rocked by a recent spike in violence.

On April 2, suspected Sunni militants executed 21 Shiite workers while they were travelling home to Diyala after a day's work in Baghdad.

On March 29, coordinated bomb attacks in a market in the Diyala town of Khalis killed more than 40 people.