Iraqi bomber strikes police recruits

A suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up Monday in a crowd of police recruits, killing at least 29 people, police and hospital officials said. Separately, a group of kidnapped Sunni and Shiite sheiks were freed, a government spokesman said.\nPolice and relatives have identified the tribal leaders abducted in Baghdad as seven Shiites and three Sunnis aligned against al-Qaida who were on their way home to Diyala province – the same region where Monday’s bombing took place – after attending a meeting with the Shiite-dominated government’s adviser for tribal affairs to discuss coordinating efforts against the terror group.\nPolice said one of the Sunnis in the group – seized from cars in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood – was shot to death, but Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari said the rest were freed Monday. He declined to specify how many or give more details.\nThe U.S. military, citing intelligence sources, said Monday that a rogue Shiite militia leader was responsible for the abduction, identifying him as Arkan Hasnawi, a former brigade commander in the Mahdi Army militia, which is nominally loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.\nAl-Sadr in August ordered his Mahdi Army fighters to lay down their arms for up to six months, but thousands of followers dissatisfied with being taken out of the fight have broken off to form their own groups that the military says are being funded and armed by Iran to foment violence. Iran denies the allegations.\nThe military said Hasnawi’s actions clearly demonstrate that he has violated the cease-fire order and “joined forces with Iranian-supported special groups that are rejecting Muqtada al-Sadr’s direction to embrace fellow Iraqis.”\nA member of the Shiite Ambagyah tribe based east of Baqouba said seven of its members were among those abducted.\nThe kidnappers had offered to release the Shiites but the sheiks refused to leave without their two remaining Sunni colleagues because they feared it “would create more violence and revenge operations,” the tribal spokesman said earlier Monday, declining to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation.\nThe sheiks were returning to Diyala province after attending a meeting with the Shiite-dominated government’s adviser for tribal affairs to discuss coordinating efforts against al-Qaida in Iraq when they were seized, police and a relative said.\nThe police recruits in Baqouba were waiting to be allowed inside the camp for the day’s training when the suicide bomber blew himself up in their midst, according to a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.\nIn southern Iraq, meanwhile, the U.S. military turned over security responsibilities to Iraqi authorities in the mainly Shiite province of Karbala, the eighth of the nation’s 18 provinces to revert to Iraqi control.\nPrime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the southern province of Basra’s security file would be transferred to the Iraqis in mid-December. The British-led forces overseeing the area already have begun drawing down and pulled back from the center of the provincial capital to the airport on the outskirts.\nAssociated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.