BAGHDAD, 7 July 2004 — Rebel fighters detonated a car bomb yesterday outside a massive tent packed with hundreds of Iraqis mourning the victims of an earlier attack, killing 14 people and wounding dozens of others.

The blast left a 1.5 meter crater in the ground, set five cars on fire and melted and burnt the tent canopy in the central town of Khalis, in the heart of Iraq’s orange-growing region. Dismembered corpses littered the floor. White plastic chairs where mourners had been sitting in orderly rows were broken and twisted.

The violence underscored rebels’ determination to continue carrying out attacks, more than a week after US forces handed power over to Iraq’s interim government. However, some Iraqis appeared to be growing fed up with the killings, which have often claimed the lives of Iraqi civilians.

Yesterday, a previously unknown militant group threatened to kill Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi a day after US-led coalition forces launched an airstrike on a suspected safe house used by followers of the Jordanian militant in Fallujah. The attack killed 15 people, witnesses said.

An Iraqi motorist, due to be married in two days, was shot dead by US troops in Baghdad yesterday as he overtook a military convoy on his way to the hotel where his wedding was to take place, police and relatives said.

The unidentified man, who had a passenger in the vehicle, was shunted into a wall by a Humvee as he was about to turn his car around to enter the hotel where his marriage was planned, one hotel guard said.

“They bumped into his car. He lost control, crashed into the wall and then the Americans shot him three times,” the guard said.

In other violence, three US Marines assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were killed while on duty in western Iraq, the military said yesterday. Two died in action Monday in the Anbar province, while a third died of his wounds Monday.

Also in Anbar, rebels gunned down the son of a tribal leader and the head of the city council in a drive-by shooting in Ramadi, 110 kilometers west of the capital, Baghdad. Hussein Amer Ali Suleiman, 18, was the younger son of Sheikh Amer Ali Suleiman, the head of Al-Dulaimi tribe — the biggest in Anbar.

Meanwhile, the family of captured US Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun said they had received word the Lebanese-American had been freed. A Lebanese government official said Hassoun was released after promising to leave the military. His whereabouts remained unknown.

Hassoun’s relatives have seen their hopes for his safe return rise and fall since June 20, when he vanished from his unit in Iraq. He later appeared in a videotape where a militant group threatened to behead him.

“We have received reliable information the guy is free,” Sami Hassoun said. “We received a sign from my brother reassuring us.”

The attack in Khalis, near the city of Baqubah, apparently targeted local council officials attending the wake for a victim of an attack Sunday that targeted the council’s chairman — but killed his brother. Hundreds of mourners were drinking traditional black coffee symbolizing grief when the car detonated within meters of the tent, said Maj. Gen. Walid Al-Azawi of the Diyala province.

The provincial governor, Abdullah Al-Juburi, was among the dignitaries who had just left the wake when the blast went off. Rebels have been targeting local officials and police officers throughout Iraq because they are seen as collaborators with Americans.

Violence has rocked Baqubah 55 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, in recent weeks. US 1st Infantry Division soldiers hammered rebels who tried to seize government buildings and police stations only days before the June 28 power handover.

Some of those assaults were blamed on Al-Zarqawi’s network, which launched a series of car bombings before the handover that killed nearly 100 people.

— Additional input from agencies