Baghdad: A bomber walked into a large group of mourners gathered for a funeral in the Iraqi province of Diyala yesterday evening and detonated the explosives strapped to his body, killing “many” and injuring “many more,” police said.
A police officer told the Baghdad-based Voices of Iraq news agency that it was not immediately clear how many died or were wounded in the attack in central Jalawla, roughly 200 km north of Baghdad. “But,” he said, “the death toll will likely be high because of the strength of the blast.”
It was the fourth deadly bombing targeting Sunnis in central Iraq that day.
Yesterday began with a bomb attack on Sheikh Imad Al-Halbusi’s family home in Fallujah, west of Baghdad. At least eight people, including two children, were killed in that attack, and nine were wounded.
Sheikh Imad had been the head of the local “Awakening Council,” the grouping of the Sunni tribe members who have joined with Iraqi and US forces to fight Sunni insurgents in exchange for training, funding, and weapons.
Hours later, twin bombs exploded in a crowded market in Abu Ghraib, some 25 km west of Baghdad. At least 10 people died in those blasts, and 11 were injured, police official Shakir Faza, told German Press Agency dpa.
