BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber killed nine people and wounded 30 others at a funeral in Diyala province north of Baghdad on Friday, a senior Iraqi security official said. The bomber struck as people gathered at a cemetery near the town of Hamrin, north of the provincial capital Baquba, for the funeral of a policemen who had been killed on Thursday, said Abdul Kareem al-Rubaie, commander of Diyala security operations.A U.S. military spokesman confirmed the strike and said at least 30 people were wounded. “This barbaric attack continues to show the desperate and horrific measures these individuals will stoop in order to hurt the innocent Iraqi people,” Captain Stephen Bomar, spokesman for U.S. troops in northern Iraq, said in an e-mail.
Diyala has been one of the main battlegrounds between Sunni Islamist al Qaeda militants and U.S. and Iraqi forces.