Tuesday, January 10 2006 09:36 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Baghdad: Twenty-eight police were killed and 25 injured yesterday (Jan 09, 2006) when twin suicide bombers attacked Iraq's interior ministry where ministers and the US ambassador were attending a parade to mark Police Day.

The Iraqi branch of Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack at the rear entrance to the ministry, some 400 metres away from the parade.

Police shot one of the bombers because he looked suspicious, but the bullets detonated the explosives strapped to his body, a security official said.

As police crowded around the remains, the second suicide bomber blew himself up, wreaking carnage. Both bombers had been dressed in Iraqi police uniforms.

The dead included a major who was responsible for ministry security.

A mortar shell was also fired, but it fell next door in the police academy, causing no damage.

The group headed by Iraq's most-wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said the attack was to avenge the 'torture' of Sunni Muslims at the interior ministry.

"The lions of unification led a new raid against the ministry of interior to avenge the Sunnis who were subjected to all sorts of torture at the prisons of this ministry," it said in an Internet statement, which could not be independently authenticated.

Abuse scandals erupted in November and December when US and Iraqi forces discovered two overcrowded interior ministry detention centres. Many of the inmates showed signs of torture.

Sunni leaders have condemned the government for the abuses, claiming that the interior ministry is controlled by Shiite militias bent on persecuting the fallen minority that dominated Iraq until the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The Organisation of Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia said, "the lions chose the day when the apostates were gathered to celebrate (Iraqi Police Day)".

"Two brothers ... managed to cross nine checkpoints and blew up their explosive belts," it said.

Top officials, including Interior Minister Bayan Jabr Solah, Defence Minister Saadun al Dulaimi and US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, were watching the annual police celebration when the attack occured.

The latest bloodshed came as the electoral commission announced a delay in releasing its findings into fraud allegations in last month's Iraqi elections.

"There are still four to five small outstanding items," Abdul Hussein al-Hindawi, a member of the Iraqi electoral commission board, told sources.

The commission said the findings would be announced next weekend, after the three-day Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

Top Sunni leader Saleh Mutlaq called for an end to violence, but also cautioned "terrorism will only stop when we form a balanced, united Iraqi government in which everybody takes part".

Mindful of such efforts to get Sunnis into the government, Zarqawi hit out in an earlier Internet statement at the Iraqi Islamic Party, another Sunni-based faction, warning it not to get involved in the political process.