(19 Feb 2012)
Eastern Baghdad
1. Wide of damaged car being attached to recovery vehicle
2. Close of crane lifting burnt out car onto recovery vehicle
3. Various of burnt out car being hauled away by recovery vehicle, police nearby
Central Baghdad
4. Ambulance and people standing outside Ibn al-Nafis hospital
5. Exterior of Ibn al-Nafis Teaching Hospital Emergency Unit
6. Sign over door inside hospital reading (Arabic) ''Emergency ''
7. Relatives of injured people gathering around victims of blast
8. Various of injured on hospital beds being treated by medical staff
9. An injured man with bandaged legs on hospital bed
10. Close of bandaged legs
11. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Mohammed Jasim, eyewitness:
"While policemen were coming out of a police academy, a speeding car exploded amongst them. The policemen and officers were on a course in the academy."
12. Wide of hospital ward
13. Ambulance leaving hospital, AUDIO: Siren
STORYLINE
Twenty people were killed as a suicide bomber detonated his car as a group of police recruits left their academy in Baghdad, in the latest strike on security officials that angry residents blamed on political feuding that is roiling Iraq.
Police said the suicide bomber was waiting on the street outside the fortified academy near the Interior Ministry in an eastern neighbourhood in the Iraqi capital.
As the crowd of recruits exited the compound's security barriers and walked into the road, police said the bomber drove toward them and blew up his car.
Witnesses described a horrific scene of burning cars, scattered pieces of burned flesh and wounded people flattened on the ground.
Five policemen were among the dead; the rest were recruits.
Another 28 recruits and policemen were wounded.
Iraq's police are generally considered to be the weakest element of the country's security forces, which are attacked in bombings and drive-by shootings almost every day.
The last big assault on police came in October, when 25 people were killed in a string of attacks that included two bombers slamming explosives-packed cars into police stations.
Recruits, too, are a favourite target.
Suicide bombers killed scores of young men lined up for security jobs at training centres in Baghdad and the northern city of Tikrit in recent years.
The public outcry that followed from lawmakers and residents after those attacks spurred the government to bolster training and recruiting centres with better protection.
But, as Sunday's attacks showed, extremists are easily able to sidestep security measures.
At Baghdad's police academy, recruits generally are escorted out of the compound to ensure their safety.
But once they get to the street outside, they are on their own.
It was at that point that Sunday's bomber struck.
The group of recruits had left the compound's barrier gates and were crossing the road to hail a taxi or bus ride home after finishing a two-week training course.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but suicide attacks are a hallmark of al-Qaida.

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