Man in wheelchair blows himself up in Iraqi center

BAGHDAD (AP) — A man in a wheelchair laden with explosives persuaded security guards Monday to push him into an Iraqi operations center, where he blew himself up in an attack that killed the center’s deputy commander.

The infiltration, along with a U.S. report that insurgents used an adolescent to carry out a suicide attack against a mosque last week, was the latest indication that al-Qaida in Iraq is expanding its tactics to avoid detection before a bombing.

The Iraqi military indefinitely banned all motorcycles, bicycles and hand-pushed and horse-drawn carts from Baghdad’s streets Sunday, two days after a bomb hidden under a horse-drawn cart exploded downtown, killing three civilians.

That attack came exactly one month after a suicide bomber pushing an electric heater atop a cart packed with hidden explosives attacked a high school in Baqouba.