Funeral attack kills 23 as Iraq violence costs more than 40 lives
Pastor Dale Morgan
Tuesday May 1, 2:43 AM
*Funeral attack kills 23 as Iraq violence costs more than 40 lives*
At least 23 people were killed when a suicide bomber struck a Shiite
family wake in the restive province of Diyala on Monday, raising the
day's death toll in violence-plagued Iraq to more than 40.
"A man wearing a suicide belt walked into the Shiite wake and just blew
himself up," said Captain Ahmed Abdallah of the local police in Khalis,
80 kilometres (50 miles) northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province.
He told AFP at least 23 people were killed and 17 wounded.
The province, which is religiously and ethnically mixed, has seen some
of the fiercest fighting in Iraq in recent weeks, believed to be the
work of insurgents who fled a major security crackdown in Baghdad.
More than 20 other people were killed in attacks elsewhere in the
country as insurgents continued to target civilians and police.
Four Iraqis were killed and six wounded when a truck bomb exploded
outside a restaurant in the western town of Hit, Dr Abdel Karim al-Hiti
from the local medical centre told AFP.
A police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attack
was carried out by a suicide bomber who hit the Al-Zawiya restaurant.
Al-Qaeda militants have been striking civilians in western Iraq since
several powerful Sunni tribes threw in their lot with the central
government and its US allies.
In war-torn Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle outside a police
headquarters in a western district, killing five people and wounding 12,
a security official said.
The Iraqi police have come under heavy fire in recent months as they
struggle to clamp down on the city's daily mayhem as part of a
10-week-old security plan.
Elsewhere in the capital, a former brigadier general in Saddam Hussein's
army was shot dead in the volatile southern neighbourhood of Dura, and
three civilians were killed in two separate roadside bombings.
The two blasts wounded 10 people, security and medical sources said.
At least one person was killed and six wounded in a car bombing in the
southwestern neighbourhood of Al-Bayaa, the site of several recent attacks.
Another person was killed and nine wounded when three mortar rounds
slammed into the northeastern Shiite neighbourhood of Al-Shaab.
The bodies of another three people killed in a gunfight in the capital
were brought to Al-Yarmuk hospital in west Baghdad, the hospital said.
Further south, gunmen ambushed a checkpoint outside the city of Kut,
killing two policemen before fleeing, police Lieutenant Naim Hassan said.
Earlier in the day, authorities found six corpses, two of them
decapitated, in an area north of the city.
In the northern city of Mosul, authorities arrested 61 suspected
militants following an overnight shootout at a police station.
"A number of gunmen attacked Al-Waqqas police station in western Mosul
prompting the police to counterattack and kill four gunmen," said police
Colonel Mohammed al-Waggaa.
A remotely detonated car bomb exploded near reinforcements who were
racing to the scene, killing one policeman and wounding two.
Authorities detained another 77 suspected militants in other parts of
the country.