Wheelchair Suicide Bomber Kills Two At Iraqi Police Station

Iraqi officials say a suicide bomber in a wheelchair has attacked a police station near the capital, Baghdad, killing at least two people and wounding 18 others.

Authorities say the bomber blew himself up at the entrance to the police compound in the central town of Tarmiyah on Sunday. At least nine of those wounded were policemen.

Elsewhere, police say a bomb went off Sunday near a car carrying the mayor of the northern Iraqi town of Riyadh in Kirkuk province. Two people were wounded, but the mayor was unharmed.

Iraqi security personnel and officials have become a frequent target of insurgents as the Iraqi government prepares for a withdrawal of U.S. forces that is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.

In another development, an Iraqi official said Sunday a court has sentenced the wife of a slain al-Qaida leader to life in prison on charges of providing assistance to terrorists. Judicial council spokesman Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar says the court handed the life term to Hasna Ali Yahya on Thursday.

Yahya, a Yemeni national, was married to Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al-Qaida’s Iraqi affiliate until Iraqi and U.S. forces killed him and another top militant in a security operation in April 2010. Such operations have weakened al-Qaida in Iraq in recent years, but the group has continued to stage deadly attacks across the country.