Woman suicide bomber kills three in Baghdad: police

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A female suicide bomber killed at least three people and wounded four others in central Baghdad, police said on Sunday, the latest such attack to be carried out by a woman.

The woman wearing a suicide vest detonated explosives in a shop after fleeing from guards at a checkpoint, near electrical stores in the Karrada district of the capital, police said.

Earlier this month two women bombers, whom the U.S. and Iraqi officials have said were mentally handicapped, killed 99 people in two crowded pet markets in the Iraqi capital. The attacks were the deadliest in the city since April.

The woman in the latest attack did not appear to be mentally impaired, the police said.

The bombing comes in a week when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and senior officials have been hailing the success of a year-long clampdown named "Operation Imposing Law" implemented to curb sectarian violence in the Iraqi capital.

Attacks by insurgents and rival sectarian militias have fallen by up to 80 percent in Baghdad since it was launched, a senior Iraqi military official said on Saturday.

However al Qaeda in Iraq, blamed by the U.S. military for most large-scale bombings, has increasingly used women wearing suicide vests to carry out strikes after increased security and protective concrete walls made car bombings more difficult.

(Baghdad newsroom: writing by Mohammed Abbas; editing by Philippa Fletcher)