Suicide bomber kills 8 in Iraq; toll could climb

BAGHDAD, Iraq — An Iraqi carrying hidden explosives entered a police recruitment center and set them off today, killing at least eight people and wounding 15, police said, though officials said the death toll could climb much higher.

Al-Arabiya television, quoting medical sources, said 60 Iraqis were killed in the attack.

It occurred in Erbil, a Kurdish city 220 miles north of Baghdad, said police officer Shwan Mohammed. He said there was an initial report of eight fatalities and 15 injuries, but that many more people may have been killed and hurt.

As ambulances and taxis raced to the chaotic scene and took casualties to local hospitals, Sadi Ahmed Perah, a senior local official with the Kurdish Patriotic Union party, said dozens of people appeared to have been killed or wounded.

Insurgents have stepped up their attacks across Iraq in the past week, often targeting convoys of U.S. and Iraqi troops, and Iraqi police on patrol or at recruitment centers.

Sentencing hearing in Abu Ghraib case

FORT HOOD, Texas — Defense lawyers sought leniency for Pfc. Lynndie England at a hearing yesterday to determine her punishment in the Abu Ghraib prison-abuse scandal, with a psychologist testifying that the reservist was oxygen-deprived at birth, speech-impaired and had trouble learning to read.

West Virginia school psychologist Dr. Thomas Denne, the first defense witness, said England's learning disabilities were identified when she was a kindergartner, and though she made progress in school, she continued to need special help.

"I knew I was going to know Lynndie England for the rest of my life," Denne said.

A military jury of five men and one woman was seated yesterday to make a sentencing recommendation for England, 22, who pleaded guilty Monday to seven counts of mistreating prisoners.

England accepted responsibility for the smiling, thumbs-up poses she struck for photos taken at Abu Ghraib that made her the face of the prisoner-abuse scandal.

The charges carry up to 11 years in prison.

Body of missing pilot is found in Iraq

WASHINGTON — One of two pilots whose Marine Corps fighter jets were reported missing in Iraq has been found, and investigators have concluded that their planes likely collided in the air, a senior defense official said yesterday.

At the Pentagon, an official said an emergency beacon from one of the F/A-18 jets was detected on the ground about 15 miles southwest of Karbala. A pilot's body was found in his ejection seat, another defense official said.

The jets had launched from the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson on Monday and were reported missing Monday evening. The ship left Bremerton in January for a six-month deployment. It will then go to Virginia for an overhaul.