|
Suicide bomber kills 32 at funeral for politician's nephew By Steven Komarow, USA TODAY BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber killed 32 mourners at a crowded funeral north of Baghdad on Wednesday, part of an upsurge in violence since last month's elections. The attack, which left at least 42 people wounded, was aimed at a funeral for the nephew of a Shiite politician. Hana al-Daghistani, a spokeswoman for Diyala province, said 120 people were attending the funeral for the nephew of Ahmed al-Bakka, a local leader of the Shiite Dawa Party and director of a local hospital. The teenager had been mortally wounded in an assassination attempt on al-Bakka the day before. The attack in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, was the deadliest of several Wednesday. Two car bombs exploded in Baghdad, one killing seven and the other three. Roadblocks throughout the capital snarled traffic as police searched for Interior Minister Bayan Jabr's sister, who was kidnapped by gunmen Tuesday. A roadside bomb in the northern oil city of Kirkuk missed a passing U.S. Army patrol and instead hit a civilian automobile, killing three people. More than 50 people died in Wednesday's attacks. Insurgents attacked a convoy of 60 tanker trucks with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns, destroying three of the tankers and damaging 15 others, police Lt. Abdul Zahra Qassim said. Three Iraqi army vehicles, which had been guarding the convoy, also were destroyed in the attack about 25 miles north of Baghdad. Violence in Iraq had dropped during the period surrounding last month's elections, but it has been surging again. More than 7,000 Iraqis, including 4,021 civilians, were killed in violence in 2005, the first year that Iraqi officials have kept such records, an Interior Ministry official told the Associated Press. The year 2005 saw 2,880 attacks on Iraqi security forces and civilians, Maj. Abdul Aziz al-Mousawi said. He said 1,225 policemen and 475 soldiers were killed, along with 1,709 insurgents. The Associated Press couldn't confirm the accuracy of the numbers because many slayings in Iraq go unreported and there are few other official figures to compare them with. The U.S. military does not track civilian deaths. Iraqi politicians have been meeting to discuss formation of a coalition government based on the election Dec. 15. Release of final results has been delayed while an international team reviews charges of fraud levied by Sunni Arab and secular political parties. Ridha Jawad Taqi, a Shiite Muslim politician, told the Associated Press that the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties were nearing agreement. "We can say that the (three groups) are close to forming a new government," he said. Contributing: Zaid Sabah and wire reports 
| 
