Iraq bomber targets police recruits

A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a police station in the town of Tikrit, killing at least 39 others. Last Modified: 18 Jan 2011 08:55 GMT

A suicide bomber has killed at least 39 people and injured at least 72 others in an attack on a police station in Tikrit, around 150 km north of Baghdad, the capital. A man wearing a vest filled with explosives detonated himself next to a crowd of police recruits, Ahmed Abdul-Jabber, the deputy governor of the Salaheddin province, told the Reuters news agency. There were more than 300 men standing in line waiting to apply for police jobs when the bomber struck, a police source told Reuters. Tikrit is the hometown of Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president, and authorities suspect the province remains home to those sympathetic to Hussein and his Ba'ath party and opposed to the current leadership.

Source: Al Jazeera and Agencies