15 Iraqi Police Killed By Explosion

Police and hospital officials in Iraq say at least 15 policemen were killed after some recently-discovered rockets exploded before they could be defused.

The blast occurred after police, acting on a tip, discovered the rockets primed for attack in the back of a truck behind a deserted ice factory in eastern Baghdad.

Explosives experts were trying to defuse the rockets, when two blew up in quick succession.

At least 27 other people were wounded.

Pennsylvania Soldier Killed After Reenlistment

A soldier from York County, Pa., was shot and killed in an ambush in Iraq on Sunday.

Marc Runyan, the father of Army Spc. Luke Runyan, said he was told by Army officials that another solider was killed and a third injured in the attack northeast of Baghdad.

The 21-year-old soldier leaves behind a wife, Courtney, and their 1-year-old daughter, Brynn. The two met while he was stationed at Fort Lewis, Wash.

Runyan was an avid hunter who also enjoyed riding his motorcycle. He enlisted in the Army while he was a senior at Spring Grove Area Senior High School. Late last year, he re-enlisted for another three years.

He deployed to Iraq last spring.

"He had no fear of combat and I guess that was part of his training," Marc Runyan said. "He once told me you go out on a mission and if you get hit, you get hit. If you don't, you don't. It's as simple as that. He did feel very strongly they were doing an excellent job freeing the Iraqi people from al Qaeda."

Police Ordered To Round Up Beggars, Mentally Disabled To Prevent Their Exploitation As Bombers

In a bid to foil insurgents' use of the most vulnerable as suicide bombers, the Iraqi Interior Ministry has ordered police to round up beggars, homeless and mentally disabled people from the streets of Baghdad, a spokesman said Tuesday.

The decision came nearly three weeks after twin suicide bombings against pet markets that officials said were carried out by mentally disabled women who may have been unwitting attackers.

The people detained in the Baghdad sweep will be handed over to social welfare institutions and psychiatric hospitals that can provide shelter and care for them, Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

"This will be implemented nationwide starting today," Khalaf told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

"Militant groups, like al Qaeda in Iraq, have started exploiting these people in a very bad manner to kill innocent victims because they do not raise suspicions," Khalaf said. "These groups are either luring those who are desperate for money to help them in their attacks or making use of their poor mental condition to use them as suicide bombers."

The allegations reflect warnings by the U.S. military that the insurgents are skilled in adopting new tactics and willing to use women or children as suicide bombers as they seek to bypass stepped-up security measures and bounce back from losses in recent U.S.-led offensives.

The Iraqi claim that mentally disabled women were used in the Feb. 1 pet market bombings was met initially with skepticism. Iraqi authorities said they based the assertion on photos of the bombers' heads that purportedly showed the women had Down syndrome, and did not offer any other proof.

However, the director of the separate Ibn-Rushd psychiatric teaching hospital in central Baghdad, Dr. Shalan al-Abboudi, said that one of the pet market bombers, a 36-year-old married woman, had been treated there for schizophrenia and depression, according to her file. Refusing to identify her, he said she received electric shock therapy and was released into the custody of an aunt.

American and Iraqi troops later detained the acting director of a psychiatric hospital on suspicion of helping supply patient information to al Qaeda in Iraq.

Women often aren't searched at checkpoints because men refuse to search them due to Islamic sensitivities and there's a dearth of female guards. Echoing the fears, police said 1,000 female officers will be deployed among the pilgrims massing in the Shiite holy city of Karbala for a major pilgrimage next week.

It was not clear how the plan could be implemented in a city of more than 5 million people who have grown used to maintaining a low profile and often hiding their identity during nearly five years of fighting and sectarian violence.

Laurie Ahern, the associate director of the Washington, D.C.-based Mental Disability Rights International, expressed concern that the report suggested Iraqi authorities were casting "an awful wide net."

She noted that women and children were being recruited in increasing numbers in Iraq - but said no one should suggest detaining them.

"To round up a group of people based on a disability .... I'm not sure that's the best way to handle the situation," Ahern said in a telephone interview.

Ahern added that, given the traumas of the U.S.-led invasion and subsequent violence, many Iraqis could be considered mentally vulnerable.

Trial Delayed For Iraqi Officials Accused In Kidnappings, Killings

Prosecution witnesses failed to appear Tuesday for the politically fraught trial of two former Iraqi officials accused of letting Shiite death squads use hospitals and ambulances to kill and kidnap rivals, delaying the start of the case to March 2.

Former Deputy Health Minister Hakim al-Zamili and Brig. Gen. Hameed al-Shimmari are accused of using their positions to help the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr carry out sectarian killing sprees.

The defense team has said the allegations are baseless, and planned to call more than a dozen witnesses.

The case is seen as a test of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists as well as Sunni insurgents. Al-Maliki is a Shiite, who won office partly because of the support of al-Sadr's followers, though he has since fallen out of favor among them.

The allegations against the Health Ministry officials highlight some of the worst retaliatory sectarian violence that broke out after the Feb. 22, 2006, bombing of a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra at the hands of Sunni insurgents.

After al-Zamili's arrest, the U.S. military said - without mentioning his name - that he was believed to have siphoned millions of dollars from the ministry to the Mahdi Army "to support sectarian attacks and violence targeting Iraqi citizens."

Militiamen also were allowed to use government hospitals and clinics to gather information on Iraqis seeking treatment and "those Iraqis that were discovered to be Sunnis would later be targeted for attacks," the military said. Ambulances also were allegedly employed to transport and kidnap victims.

The number of execution-style killings blamed on the so-called sectarian death squads has dropped sharply since al-Sadr declared a six-month cease fire in late August. The cleric has warned he may not extend the order when it expires at the end of this month, and there's concern that convicting the officials could create a backlash from the Sadrists.

Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar, a spokesman for the Iraqi Higher Judicial Council, said the trial was adjourned until March 2 because the witnesses failed to appear.

Bayrkdar did not give a reason the witnesses did not come to court, but said Iraq has no law to ensure their protection. He also said the new trial date was chosen in deference to Shiite festivities surrounding an upcoming major pilgrimage to the holy city of Karbala.

Defense lawyer Amir Taha complained Tuesday that he was deprived of the right to meet his clients.

"They did not allow me to meet them until now," he said. "I submitted five letters to meet them but they were postponed on the pretext of technical reasons."

Associated Press writers Kim Gamel, Sinan Salaheddin, Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Saad Abdul-Kadir in Baghdad and Raphael G. Satter in London contributed to this report.