Female suicide bomber kills 10 in Iraq
Middle East Desk Report

BAGHDAD—A female suicide bomber killed 10 people in Iraq on Wednesday, the latest in a string of suicide bombings that has seen a major strike nearly every day of the past week despite an overall decline in violence.
The woman blew herself up with an explosive vest at a checkpoint of neighborhood patrol volunteers in Baquba, capital of the restive Diyala province. Twenty-eight people were wounded including some women, police said.
The attack came the day after a bomber detonated his explosive vest in a tent crowded with mourners at a Baghdad funeral. Police raised the death toll from that strike to 34, making it the worst in the capital in six months.
U.S. forces said the strikes showed that al Qaeda Sunni Arab militants remained able to carry out so-called “spectacular” attacks killing large numbers of people despite improvements in security that saw overall levels of violence drop.
“We have said all along ... they do still have the capability to conduct these horrific attacks, barbaric attacks that target innocent civilians in their effort to try to excite sectarian tensions,” spokesman Major-General Kevin Bergner said.
U.S. military figures released over the weekend show suicide bombings increased over the past two months after a low in October. Among those killed in Wednesday’s strike was Abdul-Rafaa al-Nidawi, whom police described as the coordinator between U.S. forces and volunteer patrols in the city. Other volunteers were also among the dead.
The mainly Sunni Arab neighborhood patrols, paid by U.S. forces to oppose Sunni al Qaeda militants, have frequently been targeted by suicide bombers in recent months. The patrols were initially set up by tribes that turned against the Sunni Islamist group and are now springing up throughout Sunni Arab areas with U.S. funding and support.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who is not believed to have direct control over the Iraqi militants that use his organization’s name, threatened attacks against the patrol members in an audio tape released last week. “The fact that al Qaeda is targeting them is the clearest indication that they are concerned about them,” Bergner said.
Tuesday’s strike at the funeral in Baghdad was the deadliest in the capital since August 1. The funeral was being held for a victim of another big bomb attack three days before. “While we were standing for the third day of mourning, a suicide bomber came in and blew himself up. Tens of people were killed,” said Abdul-Razzaq, one of the wounded being treated for shrapnel wounds at a Baghdad hospital.
Wednesday’s strike in Baquba hit the capital of a province where U.S. forces say al Qaeda has regrouped after being pushed out of other strongholds. Strikes by female suicide bombers are comparatively rare but there have been several in recent weeks in Diyala, including one which killed 16 people on December 7 and another which wounded seven people at a police station in Baquba on New Year’s Eve.
Bergner called the deployment of female bombers “another indication of the depths that al Qaeda is willing to go to perpetrate violence and target innocent civilians.”
The past week saw major bombings against civilians or neighborhood patrol volunteers nearly every day. On New Year’s Eve a suicide car bomb killed 11 people including five children in a town north of Baghdad. On Christmas day two separate strikes on patrol volunteers killed at least 33 people.
A suicide bombing Wednesday in the city of Baqouba killed seven people and wounded 22, police said, while authorities increased the death toll from a Baghdad suicide attack at a funeral the previous day to 36.
The bombings were a reminder of the dangers that persist despite the recent decline in violence in Iraq — and of the peril for mass gatherings in a country where the bereaved often find themselves targets.