Kirkuk, Iraq: The mayor of the Iraqi town where a suicide bomber killed 42 people at a funeral said yesterday that the attack was launched by a man disguised as a cleric.
The bomber struck Wednesday at a Shia mosque in Tuz Khurmatu, 175km north of Baghdad, targeting the funeral of the relative of a politician.
The blast killed 42 people and wounded 75 others in the deadliest single attack since July 23.
“The suicide bomber who targeted the funeral procession was wearing religious clothes and a turban and he entered the hall and blew himself up,” Shallal Abdul said, citing survivors of the attack.
Though suicide attacks are common in Iraq, bombers rarely dress in religious garb and attacks in mosques remain relatively rare.
No group claimed responsibility, but Sunni militants often launch attacks in a bid to destabilise the government and push Iraq back towards the sectarian violence that blighted it from 2005 to 2008.
The attacker struck at the Sayid Al Shuhada mosque during the funeral of the brother-in-law of Ali Hashem Oghlu, deputy chief of the Iraqi Turkman Front and a provincial councillor in Salaheddin, which surrounds Tuz Khurmatu.
The politician was among the wounded in Wednesday’s blast.
AFP
