Suicide bombing kills 32 at funeral in Iraq
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-05 08:45

It was impossible to confirm the accuracy of the numbers because many slayings in Iraq go unreported and there are no other official figures with which to compare them. The United States military does not track civilian deaths.

While Islamic extremist groups were suspected in the funeral attack, an Internet posting in the name of the Islamic Army in Iraq, a nationalist group, claimed responsibility for the ambush of the tanker convoy.

The claim was posted on an Internet site commonly used by militant groups and could not be independently verified.

The Islamic Army in Iraq is one of the most active terror groups in the country. It believed to include former Baathists and loyalists to Saddam Hussein, along with Sunni Salafist Islamic extremists and former Palestinian militants who lived in Iraq under Saddam's rule.

Nobody was injured in the attack on the drivers, which came three days after the reopening of the Beiji refinery, Iraq's largest. The refinery north of the capital had been closed since Dec. 18 because of attacks on drivers, leading to hourslong lines at gas stations in Baghdad.

Iraqi police retrieve personal articles from victims of a roadside bomb, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2006, in Kirkuk, Iraq. [AP]

Meanwhile, roadblocks went up across Baghdad as police searched for Interior Minister Bayan Jabr's sister, who was kidnapped Tuesday. Gunmen killed one of her bodyguards and seriously wounded another in the abduction.

The pan-Arab Al-Jazeera network said a previously unknown group called the al-Tha'r Battalion, Arabic for revenge, claimed responsibility for the abduction. It demanded the release of all women detainees, a stop to all raids by the Interior Ministry, and decreased fuel prices.

In other violence:

- A car bomb exploded near an outdoor market in Baghdad's southern Dora district, killing seven people and wounding 15, police said.

- Another car bomb in northern Baghdad killed three civilians and a policeman, and wounded 13, said Maj. Mosa Abdelkareem.

- A roadside bomb targeting a U.S. patrol in Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, hit a civilian car instead, killing three passengers, said police Col. Polla Mohammed.