.png)
Iraqi policemen stand guard at a checkpoint as a tow-truck drags away the remains of a vehicle after a suicide car bomber blew himself up in front of Baghdad police Academy in the Iraqi capital on February 19, 2012 killing 15 people and wounding 21 others. (Khalil al-Murshidi/AFP/Getty Images)
At least 20 police officers and police cadets were killed in a suicide car bomb attack on Sunday in Baghdad, officials said in media reports, and underscoring the relative lack of security in Iraq just months after American troops left.
Officials said that the explosives-laden car was driven into a group of police cadets as they were exiting the police academy compound, The Associated Press reported.
“We heard a big explosion and the windows of the room shattered,” witness Haider Mohammed told AP.
He added that people in the area “[know] the time when the recruits come and go from the academy. This is a breach of security.”
A local official told AFP that the driver of the vehicle careened into the crowd of people, most of whom were potential new recruits applying to join the police academy.
In other parts of Iraq, seven other people were killed in Sunday in separate attacks, including four police informants, a police officer, and antiterrorist militia, the news agency reported. In the morning, “a group of suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen attacked a house in the center of Baquba,” a police official said.
“The attackers killed three women and one man from one family inside the house,” the official added.