20 headless corpses found in Iraq, police say

Doctor: Hospital lacks equipment
Mohammed al-Kirrawi, a doctor at the Baqouba general hospital, said most of the victims were struck by iron balls packed with the explosives to achieve maximum casualties. He said the hospital lacked the necessary equipment to save many of the wounded.

The attack bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq, whose militants have repeatedly targeted police and army recruits to discourage Iraqis from joining the country's nascent security forces. Police and hospital officials, giving the casualty toll, also said 19 people were wounded.

Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, is the capital of Diyala province, where hundreds of Sunni Arab tribesmen and insurgents have in recent months joined the U.S. and Iraqi forces in the fight against al-Qaida. The U.S. military has been trying to extend the strategy to Shiite tribes in a bid to curb Shiite militia violence.

A parked car bomb also exploded near a market in Siniyah, just west of Beiji, an oil hub 155 miles north of Baghdad.

Police said the bomb apparently was targeting a police patrol but missed its target, killing four members of a family who were heading to the market to do their morning shopping and wounding 13 other people.

Violence persists
Another parked car bomb struck a bus station in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Baiyaa, killing at least one civilian and wounding six, police said.

In 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.

Prime 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.

"This is the proof of the strong will and resolve of the good citizens of this nation," al-Maliki said at the handover ceremony in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad. "The reconstruction of Iraq does not hinge on security alone, but security is the key to everything."

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