Wednesday, December 7 2005 10:20 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Baghdad: Two suicide bombers detonated explosives inside Baghdad's main police academy yesterday (Dec 6,2005), killing at least 43 people and wounding more than 70, police said. Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest in the capital in months.

Al-Jazeera aired an insurgent video claiming to have kidnapped a US security consultant, the seventh Westerner abducted since November 26. The US military reported that another American soldier had been killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.

The attack on the academy in eastern Baghdad was carefully planned to maximize casualties, all of whom were police officers or cadets.

The first bomber struck near a group of students outside a classroom, a US military statement said.

Thinking they were under mortar fire, survivors rushed to a bunker "where the second bomber detonated his vest," the US statement added.

One of the injured was an American contractor, the statement said.

A statement on an Islamist Web site in the name of al-Qaida in Iraq said, "Two blessed brothers" staged the attack on the academy.

"Which continues to produce the dogs that shed the blood and violate the honour of Sunni Muslims," he said.

The claim's authenticity could not be independently verified but al-Qaida in Iraq's leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has often denounced Shiites because of religious differences and leading role in the US-backed Government.