Suicide bomber wounds 4 policemen in Iraq

TIKRIT, Iraq, March 6 (Xinhua) -- A suicide bomber blew up himself in a town in Iraq's Salahudin province on Tuesday, wounding four policemen, while the police captured three suspects who were accompanying the bomber, a provincial police source said.

The incident took place in the early morning at a police checkpoint in the southern entrance of the city of Baiji, some 30 km north of the provincial capital city of Tikrit, when policemen stopped four suspects in their car and ordered them to leave the car for a search, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

One of the men refused to leave the car and blew up his explosive vest, wounding four of the policemen and left the car totally charred at the checkpoint, while the other three suspects were captured, the source said.

Initial interrogation indicates that the three suspects may have involved in the deadly shooting spree that occurred the day before in the city of Haditha in the neighboring province of Anbar that killed 27 policemen and three of the attackers.

Salahudin province, located in northern central Iraq, is a Sunni-dominated province. Its capital city of Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad, is the hometown of former President Saddam Hussein.

Posted in: Baghdad, Baiji, Haditha, Iraq, Suicide bomber, Tikrit