IRAQ:A SUICIDE bomber wrought havoc at the funeral of two Sunni Arab militia members in north Iraq yesterday, killing at least 50 people, and injuring another 50, amid an upsurge of attacks against anti-al-Qaeda security groups.
The attack was one of the deadliest in Iraq for months and underscored the ability of militants to wreak havoc despite overall falls in violence that have prompted the United States to start withdrawing troops from Iraq.
In Baghdad, fighting has been dominated by weeks of clashes between gunmen and security forces in the Shia slum of Sadr City. US military spokesman Maj Mark Cheadle said five gunmen had been killed in the early hours of yesterday in three separate incidents, including an air strike.
Hospitals in Sadr City said they had received nine dead bodies and 36 wounded people. On Tuesday bombings killed at least 60 people in four cities in mainly Sunni areas in central and northern Iraq.
The target yesterday was a funeral attended by several local Sunni tribal chiefs in the village of Albu Mohammed, in the violent Diyala province, about 90 miles north of Baghdad.
People had gathered to mark the death, from an attack a day earlier, of two brothers said to have belonged to the local Sahwa, or Awakening Council - councils composed of Sunni tribesmen and former insurgents who have joined American forces in fighting al-Qaeda militants.
The brothers had been shot during an attack by gunmen on a village checkpoint. Police in Kirkuk, the nearest large city, said the bomber at the funeral wore an explosive vest and detonated his device after striding into a tent that had been set up to receive mourners. Relatives of the injured, some of whom had been present at the funeral, waited for news outside the main gates.
"I was walking towards the tent and it was full of people paying their respects and everything was normal," said Mohammed al-Obeidi, a farmer, who was hoping that his missing son was inside the hospital. "Then I saw a puff of smoke and then a flash and I was knocked to the ground. When I got up I saw horrible things, cars burning, everything flattened." He said that many of those at the funeral were tribal members who had united to fight the presence of al-Qaeda in the rural areas north of Baghdad.
US officials suggested the attack was the work of al-Qaeda militants determined to fight back against Sunni tribal leaders and their followers who have turned against them over the past year.
But the appearance of the Awakening Councils has also drawn criticism from other Sunni insurgent groups because of the councils' willingness to work alongside coalition and Iraqi security forces, which are dominated by Shias.
The large-scale attacks in Sunni Arab areas will increase pressure on Iraq's security forces and the prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, who are engaged in a protracted battle to root out Shia militia groups from strongholds in Baghdad and Basra. Mr al-Maliki, in a speech during a trip to Brussels on Wednesday, said Iraq was "near to announcing victory over the terrorist organisation al-Qaeda".