Suicide bomber kills 15 at Iraq Shi'ite funeral
Baku, June 19 (AZERTAC). A suicide bomber killed at least 15 people mourning at a Shi'ite funeral in the northern Iraqi city of Baquba on Monday in the latest sectarian attack this month.
A wave of bombings on Shi'ite pilgrims and religious sites has killed more than 130 people in June, reviving fears of a return to widespread sectarian violence, in some of the bloodiest attacks since U.S. troops left Iraq in December.
The bomber on Monday blew himself up inside funeral tents where mourners in Baquba were paying respects to the family of an influential Shi'ite tribal sheikh, witnesses and hospital officials said.
"The bomber came in through a side entrance in one tent. When he blew himself up, all I could see was dust and people being thrown back by the pressure of the blast," said senior policeman Abbas Ali, who was off duty and among the mourners.
"It was chaos, we are still helping people out," he said by telephone from the blast site.
Violence has fallen since the height of the war, but recent bombings on Shi'ites are fuelling worries Iraq risks slipping back into major bloodshed, especially as the government's Shi'ite, Sunni and ethnic Kurdish parties feud over sharing power.
Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, is in Diyala province, once an al Qaeda stronghold and one of the most volatile regions in Iraq with its mix of Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish communities who dispute control of the area.
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