Bomber in uniform kills 12 Iraqi police

Baghdad - A suicide car bomber dressed as a policeman tricked his way into a police base in Iraq yesterday and blew himself up, killing at least 12 people.

The bomber wore a lieutenant's uniform and maximised the casualties by timing his explosion as the day shift was taking over from the night shift at the base in Tikrit.

Witnesses said 20 cars were set ablaze and charred corpses littered the grounds. Conflicting death tolls from hospital and police officials said there were as many as 15 dead and 35 wounded. All the dead were thought to be policemen.

Police and army bases have improved their security following recent devastating attacks, but the insurgents have varied their tactics and profited from excellent intelligence supplied by infiltrators.

Guards failed to check the driver's identity documents or search his car, Colonel Saad Daham told Associated Press. "He waited until the shift change, then exploded the car."

Several other attacks were carried out elsewhere in Iraq. A roadside bomb killed two policemen and wounded three in the northern city of Kirkuk, and a suicide bomber in Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, killed two policemen and a child walking nearby.

Gunmen killed a civilian in a Baghdad bakery, and a woman died when a mortar overshot a police station. Two United States soldiers died and two were injured in other attacks. Speaking in Slovakia, President George Bush said Iraq had been making progress since the national assembly elections on January 30.

"They're putting the days of tyranny and terror behind them, and building a free and peaceful society in the heart of the Middle East," he said. "The world's free nations will support them in their struggle."

The political parties continued horse-trading in advance of the assembly's first meeting, which could be next week.

A two-thirds majority of the 275 members is needed to appoint a president and two vice-presidents, who will appoint a prime minister and cabinet.

Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdish regional government, raised the stakes by saying that Kirkuk and other disputed northern areas should be ceded to Kurdish control in exchange for their backing the new national government.

The demand to include Kirkuk in an autonomous Kurdistan will inflame other ethnic and religious groups, but it was unclear whether Mr Barzani represented the Kurdish leadership.

The interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, attempted to keep his job by proposing an alliance between his party, the Kurds and secular factions in the Shia alliance.

A U.S. soldier accused of shooting an Iraqi civilian last year and then trying to make it look like self-defence is to face a military trial. Staff Sergeant Shane Werst could face life imprisonment if convicted. -- Guardian News

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