Female suicide bomber killed in Iraq

BAGHDAD — The guards protecting a Baghdad police-recruitment station asked the woman approaching in an enveloping cloak to stop, but she kept coming.

Three policemen were injured when they shot the woman walking toward a crowd of recruits Tuesday, setting off the explosives she had concealed under her traditional abaya, police said. But a potentially deadlier attack was averted on a day when at least 64 Iraqis were slain or found dead in bomb blasts, mortar fire and other violence.

In the day's worst attack, a suicide car bomber detonated his payload in a market near Fallujah, killing at least 18 other people and injuring 15, the U.S. military said.

A U.S. soldier was killed when his patrol was attacked with small-arms fire in a southern section of the Iraqi capital, the military said. As of Tuesday, at least 3,494 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Iraqi police and army recruits are frequent targets of Sunni Arab insurgents fighting to oust U.S.-led forces and their Iraqi government allies, but attacks by female suicide bombers are rare.

About 150 applicants had gathered to submit paperwork at a recruitment center in the Baghdad Canal district when guards noticed the woman.

"All who come to the center are men. It is strange that a woman is coming. This draws the attention of the guards," said Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, which oversees police.

The guards ordered the woman to stop, but another ministry officer said she ignored their instructions, insisting she had questions about her brother's application.

The guards fired a warning but she kept walking, said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Then they shot her, and she blew up," he said.

Because of the frequency of attacks, Iraqi officials have stepped up security measures at police- and army-recruitment centers. The use of women, who normally attract less attention than men, to stage such attacks could be a response to these measures.

On April 11, a woman blew herself up among recruits in Muqdadiya, about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 19 people and injuring 33.

It was not clear why the suicide car bomber targeted the market in Amiriyah, about 35 miles west of Baghdad. But the attack happened in a region where al-Qaida-linked insurgents are battling Sunni Arab tribes that have joined forces with the U.S. military and Iraqi government.

Police in Baghdad recovered 33 unidentified bodies, all shot execution-style, a hallmark of sectarian killings. At least eight other bodies, some showing signs of torture, were recovered in regions south of the capital, where Sunni and Shiite groups have been clashing for months.

On the political front, the Iraqi parliament Tuesday passed a nonbinding resolution calling on the government to consult legislators before asking the United Nations to extend the mandate for U.S.-led forces to remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal at the end of the year.

The measure in parliament was spearheaded by anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's followers, who oppose the U.S. presence, and won support from Sunni Arab politicians and some other Shiites.

Eighty-five of the 144 lawmakers present supported the resolution; no count was taken of those opposing or abstaining.

The measure initially included a provision calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, but voting on that portion was delayed.