Baghdad suicide bomber kills 28

BAGHDAD, March 8 (UPI) -- A man on a motorcycle drove into a crowd of Baghdad police recruits Sunday and detonated a explosives-laden vest, killing 28 people, officials said.

An Iraq Interior Ministry official told CNN at least 57 people were wounded in the suicide bombing.

The injured were taken to Al-Kindi and Ibn al-Nafees hospitals as chaos and panic gripped Baghdad's Palestine Street near the Iraqi Oil Ministry building. Police cordoned off the area while emergency crews tended to the wounded, the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA reported.

An unidentified police lieutenant near the scene told the New York Times there had been a protest near the police academy at the time and the bomber had mingled with the crowd before the explosion.

The incident is the latest in a string of attacks near the police academy since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Police recruits have been frequent targets for suicide bombers since then, including a Dec. 1 attack that killed 15 people near the same spot, the newspaper said.