Bomber Kills 27 Police Recruits

BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up Monday in a crowd of police recruits northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 27 people — most of them struck by iron balls packed with the explosives, police and hospital officials said.

The recruits in Baqouba were waiting to be allowed inside the camp for the day's training when the suicide bomber blew himself up in their midst, according to a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The attack bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq, whose militants have repeatedly targeted police and army recruits to discourage Iraqis from entering the country's nascent security forces.

Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, is the capital of Diyala province, where hundreds of Sunni Arab tribesmen and insurgents have in recent months joined the U.S. and Iraqi forces in the fight against al-Qaida. The U.S. military has been trying to extend the strategy to Shiite tribes in a bid to curb Shiite militia violence.

But the extremists have fought back.

On Sunday, 10 anti-al-Qaida tribal sheiks — seven Shiites and three Sunnis — from Diyala were kidnapped in the predominantly Shiite district of Shaab in Baghdad while driving home after a meeting with the government in the capital.