BAGHDAD,Iraq (AP) — A car bomb obliterated a tent packed with mourners at the funeralof a Kurdish official in northern Iraq on Sunday, killing 25 people andwounding more than 50 in the single deadliest attack since insurgents startedbearing down on Iraq’s newly named government late last week.
The blastcapped four exceedingly violent days in which at least 116 people, including 11Americans, were killed in a storm of bombings and ambushes blamed on Iraqiinsurgents, believed largely populated by members of the disaffected Sunni Arabminority.
The Sunniswere dominant for decades under Saddam Hussein but were mainly shut out of thenew government announced Thursday. The skyrocketing violence since then isviewed by some as a response to political developments that the United Statesand the Shiite-dominated power structure had hoped would tamp down thebloodshed.
Despite theunrelenting violence, Iraq’s national security adviser said Sunday thefledgling government was making progress against the insurgents.
“There isno shadow of doubt in my mind that by the end of the year, we would haveachieved a lot,” Mouwafak al-Rubaie said in an interview with CNN’s “LateEdition.” “Probably the back of the insurgency has already been broken.”
Iraqimilitants also released a video purporting to show Iraq’s latest foreignhostage _ an Australian married to an American and living in the San Franciscoarea. Douglas Wood, 63, was shown seated between two masked militants pointingautomatic weapons at him. His wife, Pearl, told The Associated Press she sawthe tape and the man being held was definitely her husband. She said he hadbeen in Iraq about 18 months, working as an engineer.
The carbomb attack occurred in Tal Afar, 93 miles east of the Syrian border, the U.S.military and a provincial official said. Mourners had gathered for the funeralof Sayed Talib Sayed Wahab, an official of the Kurdish Democratic Party, saiddeputy provincial governor and party spokesman Khisru Goran, speaking fromnearby Mosul.
Goran saida car plowed into the funeral tent and exploded, but the U.S. military said itwas not a suicide attack. About 25 people were killed and more than 50 wounded,the U.S. military said.
U.S.troops, Iraqi police and ambulances raced to the carnage, but unidentifiedgunmen blocked the road and fighting broke out, Goran said.
At leastsix other car bombs — one of them a suicide attack — and four roadsideexplosions hit Baghdad on Sunday, killing six Iraqis, wounding more than 20civilians and five U.S. soldiers.
In oneblast, the attacker failed to fully detonate the explosives inside his caroutside an American base in Baghdad, the military said in a statement. U.S.soldiers pulled the driver out of his burning car, and the man later said hewas forced to carry out the attack to protect kidnapped family members,according to the statement.
Five moreexplosions rocked the capital late Sunday. Two roadside bombs detonated near asmall amusement park in central Baghdad, killing one Iraqi and wounding twoothers, while two more roadside bombs targeting police patrols in westernBaghdad wounded six officers, they said.
Police hadno immediate information on the fifth blast.
Insurgentsalso ambushed an Iraqi checkpoint on a small road near Diala Bridge in easternBaghdad, killing five policemen and injuring one, police said. Insurgents in apickup truck started firing machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades earlySunday, police said. Other insurgents appeared from behind nearby trees andjoined the attack.
Six morepolicemen and two civilians were injured when gunmen fired on two separatepatrols, police said.
U.S. andIraqi officials had hoped to dent support for the militants by includingmembers of the Sunni Arab minority in a new Shiite-dominated Cabinet that willbe sworn in Tuesday.
