At least 27 die in dual blasts in Iraq

BAGHDAD -- A suicide bomber blew himself up yesterday at a Baghdad police academy, sending terrified survivors rushing for the shelter of concrete blast walls where a second bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body, witnesses said.

The double suicide attack -- the latest tactical variation in the daily bombings that over nearly three years of war have reduced much of Baghdad's public areas to bleak gray blast walls and rubble -- killed at least 27 people, witnesses and US and Iraqi authorities said. The Associated Press reported a death toll of at least 43, one of the deadliest attacks on Iraqi security forces in months.

The attack targeted Baghdad's main police academy, and the majority of the dead were police recruits.

An American contractor was among roughly 50 wounded, the US military said.

One witness reported that some of the victims were trampled as survivors squeezed through a narrow opening between blast walls.

Police Captain Salah Hassan Falahi, interviewed by phone after witnessing the attack, said the assailants struck as police officers and recruits were assembling for what he said was the academy's standard roll call before lunch each day. The bombers slipped in as the last of them were lining up, he said.

''When the explosion took place, there was chaos and panic," Falahi said.

Falahi and a second person at the scene who did not directly witness the first blast, reported the panicked rush to the blast walls. The second suicide bomber, they said, ran alongside survivors, setting off his charge just as those around him thought they had reached safety.

Witnesses said US forces detained Iraqi security workers at the entrances to the academy to question them about how the bombers, who wore vests packed with explosives, entered the heavily guarded grounds.

In other violence, Iraqi soldiers patrolling a highway linking Baghdad with Jordan found the bodies of 11 men by the side of the road, handcuffed and shot in the head, Iraqi Army Lieutenant Hussein Hadhood said. The men were in civilian trousers and shirts. The bodies, found Monday, had been partially eaten by animals, leading police to believe they had lain by the road for several days, Hadhood said.

There was no immediate word on the identities of the men. Minority Sunni Arabs in Iraq repeatedly have accused militias linked to the Shi'ite-led government of operating death squads that target Sunnis. Hundreds of bodies of Sunni men have been found in similar discoveries in recent months along remote stretches of road.

Iraqi police found the bodies of another nine men by the side of a road between the predominantly Sunni cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, according to an Iraqi police captain who refused to give his name.

Police believe the victims were set upon by armed men, possibly bandits, who stole their car, the captain said.

Highway robberies, kidnappings, and other crimes have soared since the toppling of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship in 2003, making travel between regions of the country dangerous for foreigners and Iraqis. Additionally, the kidnapping of Westerners has rebounded in recent weeks after months of relative decline.

Two Arabic-language television networks aired video yesterday of a man described as a kidnapped American contractor. The man, who had bright blond hair, was shown seated in a chair with both arms behind his back, as if tied.

Other footage showed what appeared to be an American passport.

Relatives of the man identified on the passport could not immediately be reached for comment yesterday. An insurgent group asserted responsibility for the kidnapping, but Al Jazeera, one of the networks that broadcast the images, said it could not confirm its veracity.

US authorities said they were investigating.

Another US citizen was among four peace activists taken hostage Nov. 26 by a group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigade. Two Canadians and a Briton, members of Christian Peacemaker Teams, an antiwar group based in Chicago, were seized with him.

A French engineer was taken hostage in Baghdad on Monday, and a German archeologist was abducted near Mosul on Nov. 26.

Yesterday, President Bush said the United States will work for the return of captive Americans in Iraq.

''We, of course, don't pay ransom for any hostages," Bush said. ''What we will do, of course, is use our intelligence-gathering to see if we can't help locate them."

The violence and kidnappings have taken place in a capital decorated with white election banners for Iraq's Dec. 15 parliamentary elections.