BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber rode his bicycle into a crowd of police recruits in Baqouba on Monday, killing at least 29 people in a province that has become a battleground among U.S. forces, al-Qaida militants and Shiite radicals.
Also on Monday, government officials said State Department investigators offered Blackwater USA security guards immunity during an inquiry into last month's deadly shooting of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad.
The State Department investigators from the agency's investigative arm, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, offered the immunity grants even though they did not have the authority to do so, the officials said.
Prosecutors at the Justice Department, who do have such authority, had no advance knowledge of the arrangement, they added.
The immunity deal has delayed a criminal inquiry into the Sept. 16 killings and could undermine any effort to prosecute security contractors for their role in the shootings that have infuriated the Iraqi government.
"Once you give immunity, you can't take it away," said a senior law-enforcement official familiar with the investigation.
Police and hospital officials reported at least 19 peoplewounded in the attack in Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. Mohammed al-Kirrawi, a doctor at the Baqouba general hospital, said most of the victims were struck by ball bearings packed in the bomber's suicide vest and that the hospital lacked equipment to save many of the wounded.
One of the wounded recruits said he decided to join the police force only after his father was killed in sectarian violence and he was left as the large family's sole provider.
"This was an al-Qaida operation, and they were after both Shiites and Sunnis," said Saadulden Mohammed, a 25-year-old Shiite, who spoke to a reporter as he was receiving a blood transfusion.
"I was standing at the end of the platoon. Suddenly I saw explosion and fire. I would have been killed if I were standing with my Sunni friend. He died. We had breakfast together today," sobbed Mohammed, who was wounded in the back and legs.
A group of Shiite and Sunni sheiks, meanwhile, were rescued one day after they were kidnapped in the capital after meeting with the government to discuss how to coordinate efforts against al-Qaida-in-Iraq. The U.S. military blamed a Shiite militant for the kidnapping, in which one of the sheiks was said to have been killed.
BLACKWATER INQUIRY
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack referred all questions on the Blackwater immunity deal to the Justice Department. "But if anyone has broken the rules or applicable laws, they should be held to account," McCormack said.
Both Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd and FBI spokesman Rich Kolko declined comment.
FBI agents were returning to Washington late Monday from Baghdad, where they have been trying to collect evidence in the Sept. 16 embassy convoy shooting without using statements from Blackwater employees who were given immunity.
Three senior law enforcement officials said all the Blackwater bodyguards involved - both in the vehicle convoy and in at least two helicopters above - were given the legal protections as investigators from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security sought to find out what happened.
The investigative misstep comes in the wake of alreadystrained relations between the United States and Iraq, which is demanding the right to launch its own prosecution of the Blackwater bodyguards.
Blackwater has said its Sept. 16 convoy was under attack before it opened fire in west Baghdad's Nisoor Square, killing 17 Iraqis. A follow-up investigation by the Iraqi government, however, concluded that Blackwater's men were unprovoked. No witnesses have been found to contradict that finding.
Blackwater spokesman Anne Tyrrell also declined comment about the U.S. investigation. Based in Moyock, N.C., Blackwater USA is the largest private security firm protecting U.S. diplomats in Iraq.
Amid growing diplomatic tension, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asked the FBI totake over the case to avoid an appearance of a conflict of interest between the State Department's Diplomatic Security agents in Baghdad and the Blackwater personnel they supervise.
Although the FBI maintains an office at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, a team of Washingtonbased agents was dispatched as additional insurance against what one administration official called a possible "taint" on the investigation's objectivity. FBI investigators were barred from reading interviews and reports on the shootings gathered by Diplomatic Security agents.
Prosecutors will have to prove that any evidence they use in bringing charges against Blackwater employees was uncovered without using the guards' statements to State Department investigators. They "have to show we got the information independently," one official said.
Several of the Blackwater personnel, however, asserted that they had already told their stories, under immunity grants from the State Department, and declined FBI interviews that could be used against them, law enforcement officials said.
The immunity claim rests on what are called "Garrity warnings" and "Kalkines warnings," both named after federal court cases from the 1960s and '70s that recognized the special circumstances of government employees in criminal cases involving their jobs. The rulings were intended to protect the rights of government employees.
The officials who spoke of the immunity deals have been briefed on the matter and agreed to talk about the arrangement only on the condition of anonymity because they have not been authorized to discuss a continuing criminal investigation.
It's not clear why the Diplomatic Security investigators agreed to give immunity to the bodyguards, or who authorized doing so.
SHEIKS' RESCUE
Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said four kidnappers were killed and six were wounded Monday in the operation to rescue the Sunni and Shiite sheiks. He did not say who carried out the raid.
Reports kept changing on how many sheiks were involved. By late Monday, al-Askari and other officials said eight sheiks were kidnapped and seven freed.
Reports on Sunday had said the sheiks were kidnapped as they drove out of Baghdad after meeting with the Shiite-dominated government's adviser for tribal affairs.
Police found the bullet-riddled body of one of the Sunni sheiks, Mishaan Hilan, about 50 yards away from where the ambush took place, according to an officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. The sheik was identified through the mobile phone found on his body.
The U.S. accused Shiite militia leader Arkan Hasnawi, a former brigade commander in the Mahdi Army militia, of the kidnapping.
Hasnawi's breakaway Shiite fighters have battled al-Qaida for control in Diyala since the terrorist organization moved into the region and sought to make it a headquarters. Al-Qaida was largely driven out of its stronghold in Iraq's westernmost province, Anbar, after Sunni tribes rose up against the organization's brutal tactics and austere version of Islam. The U.S. military has courted both Sunni and Shiite tribal leaders in Diyala, hoping for a similar outcome.
Three months ago, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army fighters to lay down their arms for as long as six months, but thousands of followers dissatisfied with being taken out of the fight have broken off to form their own groups. The U.S. military says the rogue fighters are funded and armed by Iran to foment violence. Iran denies the allegations.
The military said Hasnawi's actions demonstrated that he has violated the cease-fire order and "joined forces with Iranian-supported special groups that are rejecting Muqtada al-Sadr's direction to embrace fellow Iraqis."
The kidnapping and the Baqouba bombing occurred during the first two days of Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling's command in the volatile region north of the capital. His 1st Armored Division took over Sunday from the 25th Infantry Division under the command of Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon.
Hertling acknowledged Sunday that violence remained high in the area but expressed confidence that the military has al-Qaida on the run.
A U.S. brigadier general was wounded in a roadside bombing Monday in northern Baghdad, the military reported.
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Dorko, commanding general of the Gulf Region Division, was the highestranking American officer to be hurt since the conflict began in March 2003. Dorko was in stable condition and was evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany; his injuries were not life-threatening.
Information for this article was contributed from Baghdad by Steven R. Hurst and from Washington by Lara Jakes Jordan of The Associated Press, by David Johnston and John M. Broder of The New York Times, and by Karen DeYoung of The Washington Post.
Front Section, Pages 1, 3 on 10/30/2007