Female suicide bomber killed by police

SALAH Al-DIN / IraqiNews.com: A female suicide bomber with strapped explosives to her body was killed by police forces before she could blow herself up in Salah al-Din province, a local police chief said on Saturday. “A female suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt attempted to blew herself up near a security checkpoint on a main street in downtown al-Dalouiya (90 km north of Baghdad),” Lt. Col. Mohammed Khaled Abdelhameed told IraqiNews.com. “The suicide bomber, aged between 25 and 27 and dressed in a khimar [a long, cape-like veil that hangs down to just above the waist, covering the hair, neck and shoulders completely, but leaving the face clear], was stopped by a policeman, but ignored instructions, forcing him to shoot her,” the officer added. Salah al-Din has an area of 24,751 square kilometers (9,556.4 sq mi). The estimated population for 2003 was 2,146,500 people. Located in Central Iraq, north of Baghdad, it is a mainly Sunni province with only two Shiite districts, namely Balad and al-Dujail. Its capital city is Tikrit, the hometown of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It also includes other important districts like Baiji, north of Tikrit, 175 km north of Baghdad. The province also contains the significantly larger city of Samarra. Before 1976 the province was part of the governorate of Baghdad. It is named after Saladin (written Salah ah Din in modern Arabic), an ethnic Kurd and hero of the 12th century. Salahuddin province is a variant version of the province’s name. SS (S) 1