40 Die in Twin Suicide Attacks on Police

Two suicide bombers struck at police trainees in the Iraqi capital on Tuesday, killing at least 40 people and wounding 70 others, Iraqi police said early today.

The first blast, outside a classroom at a police academy, sent recruits fleeing into a bunker where the second suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his chest, the U.S. military said. One trainee injured by shrapnel said he and a group of fellow students were about to go to lunch when the attack happened.

The insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack, Associated Press reported.

Shortly after the blasts, the U.S. military had reported the death toll as 27. The injured included an American contractor and four women.

No American soldiers were wounded, but the military announced that an American soldier was killed in Baghdad on Sunday when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb.

Iraqi police said another bomb exploded at a cafe in southeastern Baghdad late Tuesday, killing three and wounding 20.

The U.S. military offered new details about the deaths of 10 Marines near Fallouja last week.

The Pentagon initially said the Marines had been on foot, but gave no other details of their mission.

On Tuesday, officials released a statement saying that the blast occurred just after Marines from Company F, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, had finished conducting a promotion ceremony in an abandoned flour factory that was being used as a patrol base.

Military investigators now suspect that one Marine accidentally set off the explosion by stepping on the trigger of four buried artillery shells shortly after the ceremony concluded. The military said the Marines had swept the structure for explosives before the ceremony.

In another development Tuesday, the Arabic-language satellite TV channel Al Jazeera broadcast a video, allegedly made by insurgents claiming to have abducted an American contractor. The video also showed a U.S. passport and an Arabic identity card bearing the name Ronald Schulz. On the station’s website, a photograph showed a blond man and identified him as a security advisor to an Iraqi ministry.

Six other Westerners have been kidnapped in the last two weeks.

A German archeologist and four Christian aid workers -- an American, a Briton and two Canadians -- were kidnapped last month. On Monday, a French engineer was seized near his house in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood.

Amid the violence, Iraq is preparing for National Assembly elections next week that will decide who governs the country for the next four years. Sectarian attacks continue to stoke tensions ahead of the balloting.

Also Tuesday, in Samawah, about 145 miles southeast of Baghdad, Sunnis were warned to leave the city by Shiite tribal sheiks, who said nine Shiites had been slain.

“We ask them to leave,” said Sheik Esa Barakat, adding that otherwise Sunnis might be “killed as a response to the grisly crime committed against our sons.”

Meanwhile, Sunni residents in the village of Tarmiya, about 30 miles north of Baghdad, battled Interior Ministry commandos, setting several vehicles on fire, witnesses said.

Farhhod Galeeb, 40, said residents of Tarmiya were eager to participate in the elections and had hung campaign posters all over town. He alleged that the commandos attacked the village to discourage Sunnis from voting.

“Those forces that raided our village only attacked the Sunni area to prevent us from taking part in the next elections, so they can remain in the leadership.”

In the northern Kurdish city of Dahuk, mobs attacked the offices of the Kurdistan Islamic Union, or KIU, killing a leading member of the party and injuring others, said Sriad Rwandzi, a lawmaker in the interim National Assembly.

A demonstration turned violent when a crowd of people rushed into the KIU complex, burning and looting, witnesses said.

A party spokesman said four people died Tuesday in politically motivated attacks in northern Iraq, including one in the Iraqi town of Zakho on the Turkish border.

Against the backdrop of violence, political adversaries traded bitter accusations of foul play as Iraqi government officials recommended that 186 candidates be disqualified from the elections, accusing them of past ties to Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath Party.

“They should not be allowed to participate in the elections and given a chance to represent the people of Iraq in the next National Assembly,” said Hanan Fatlawi, a Shiite who sits on the de-Baathification committee.

Among those targeted by the committee are former interim Minister of State Adnan Janabi and several other high-profile candidates in the coalition led by former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.

Allawi, a secular Shiite, has assembled a group of candidates that includes Shiites as well as Sunnis.

In an interview at his Baghdad headquarters, Allawi called the attempted disqualifications “a joke.” “It shows how politicized the issue has become,” he said.

The de-Baathification process has been criticized as being too broad by Sunnis and others.

An election official who refused to be named said the issue was pending.

“Nothing has been decided yet,” the official said.

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Times staff writers Raheem Salman and Caesar Ahmed and special correspondents Asmaa Waguih in Baghdad, Abdulsalam Madani in Irbil and a special correspondent in Samawah contributed to this report.