Two bomb attacks claim at least 28 Iraqi lives

A suicide attacker killed at least 15 people and wounded 20 more in a Shiite funeral procession today north of Baghdad, while a car bomb exploded near a market just outside the capital killing 13 people and wounding 21, police said.

The blast occurred at about sunset in the village of Abu Saida near Baqouba, 35 miles north-east of Baghdad.

This morning’s market explosion occurred near the Diyala Bridge area just south-east of the Iraqi capital as dozens of people were shopping, police Col. Nouri Ashour said. The dead included five women, he added.

Yesterday, two suicide bombers wandered into the Sheikh Murad mosque and the Grand Mosque in the border town of Khanaqin during noon prayers and detonated explosives strapped to their bodies, police and survivors said.

Reported death tolls ranged from 76, provided by Kurdish officials, to at least 100, provided by police. Hospital officials said on Friday that 74 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the largely Kurdish town, about 90 miles north-east of Baghdad.

It was the deadliest attack since September 29, when three suicide car bombers struck in the mostly Shiite town of Balad just north of Baghdad, killing at least 99 people.

A security officer in Khanaqin, who asked not to be identified because of the nature of his job, said four people were arrested following the blasts, three were strangers who came from outside the town and the fourth was a third suicide bomber who was found near the scene.

Khanaqin police had received information from the authorities in nearby Baqouba about a possible suicide bomber in the town, but it came just minutes before the attacks, he added.

The blast ripped down part of the roof of the Grand Mosque and heavily damaged the other place of worship. At sunset, dozens of people were still searching the rubble for missing family members and friends. Others collected shredded copies of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

One of the survivors, Omar Saleh, said he was on his knees bowing in prayer when the bomb exploded at the Grand Mosque.

“The roof fell on us and the place was filled with dead bodies,” Saleh, 73, said from his hospital bed.

American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division sent medical specialists and supplies to the town, located about 6 miles from the Iranian border.

The attack came just hours after two car bombs exploded outside the Hamra hotel on Friday, in the second attack against a compound housing foreign journalists in the Iraqi capital in less than a month.

The attack began at 8:12 a.m. when a white van exploded along the concrete blast wall protecting the compound, blowing a hole in the barrier. Less than a minute later, a water tanker packed with explosives ploughed through the breach in an apparent bid to reach the hotel buildings.

But the driver – apparently blocked by smoke and debris – detonated his vehicle just inside the barrier, destroying several nearby homes and blowing out windows in the hotel. Eight Iraqis were killed and at least 43 people were injured, officials said.

The tactics in the Hamra attack were similar to those employed in the October 24 triple vehicle assault on the Palestine Hotel, where The Associated Press, Fox News and other organisations live and work.

The latest attacks have brought to at least 1,645 the number of Iraqis killed since the Shiite-led government took power April 28, according to an Associated Press count. At least 3,470 have been injured.