3 suicide blasts kill Iraqi cops, civilians

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A suicide attacker blew up an explosives-laden car yesterday outside a police academy south of Baghdad during a graduation ceremony, killing 20 people. A second car bomber killed five Iraqi policemen — bringing the death toll to at least 90 this week.

The car bomb outside a gate of the police academy in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, was the latest in a series of attacks on Iraqi security forces. More than 1,300 policemen were killed in the final four months of 2004, the Interior Ministry said yesterday.

In the restive city of Baqouba, 30 miles northeast of Baghdad, a suicide attacker rammed his car into a joint police and Iraqi National Guard checkpoint, killing five policemen and wounding eight other Iraqis, a U.S. spokesman, Maj. Neal O'Brien, said.

In a separate attack, gunmen killed police Col. Khalifa Hassan and his driver as they headed to work in Baqouba, said Dr. Ahmed Fouad at Baqouba General Hospital.

In other violence, an explosives-filled car following a convoy of U.S. and Iraqi troops detonated in western Baghdad yesterday, killing two Iraqi civilians and wounding 10, police said. The attack came as a funeral procession was held nearby for the governor of Baghdad, Ali al-Haidari, who was assassinated Tuesday.

Dr. Riyad al-Hiti at the hospital in Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, said four Iraqi civilians were killed and two injured when U.S. soldiers opened fire after their convoy was attacked by rocket-propelled grenades in Ramadi. The U.S. military had no information about the incident.

The U.S. military reported an American soldier with Task Force Olympia was killed and two were wounded Tuesday when a patrol was attacked by small arms and rocket-propelled grenades in Tall Afar in northern Iraq.

Also

Bodies found: The bodies of 18 young Iraqis executed after seeking work at a U.S. base have been found in a field near the volatile city of Mosul, police said today. Police said the insurgents shot the men, ages 14 to 20, on Dec. 8 after stopping their two mini-buses about 30 miles west of Mosul as they traveled from Baghdad. All of them were Shiite Muslims from Baghdad's northern neighborhood of Kadhimiya who were hired by an Iraqi contractor to work at a U.S. base in Mosul. Their corpses were discovered yesterday and were taken to the Kadhimiya hospital in Baghdad, police said.

Vow to vote: Despite the mounting attacks and death toll, Iraq's interim leader Prime Minister Ayad Allawi again insisted the ballot would go ahead as planned.

Ex-pats and election: As many as a million Iraqis living outside the country might vote, according to Peter Erben, an official for the International Organization for Migration, a Geneva-based group charged with overseeing the expatriate vote. In the United States, where 230,000 Iraqis are thought to live, polling stations will be set up in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Nashville and Washington, Erben said.

Marine missing again: The Marine charged with desertion after he claimed to have been kidnapped last year in Iraq was again declared a deserter yesterday after he failed to return from a holiday leave. Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was required to return to Camp Lejeune, N.C., by noon Tuesday, but did not report for duty, said a Marine spokesman.