The death toll rose to at least 30, with 39 others wounded as a
suicide bomber blew himself up at a funeral in Baghdad's eastern
neighborhood of Zaiyounah on Tuesday, an Interior Ministry source
said.
The source on condition of anonymity previously said five
mourners were killed and 15 others were wounded.
According to the source, the suicide bomber wearing an explosive
vest blew himself up in the afternoon at a funeral in Zaiyounah
neighborhood held for an Iraqi army officer who sustained a wound
in a car bomb attack last week in central Baghdad.
His brother is a colonel in the Iraqi army.
The bloody suicide bombing attack came as the Interior Ministry
reported earlier in the same day that the death toll of Iraqis
killed in violence across the country dropped to its lowest level
during December.
The data compiled by the ministry showed that a total of 1,153
people were killed across Iraq, including some 244 in Baghdad
alone.
Observers attributed the low level of casualty to the US troops
surge, the rifts that emerged between the Sunni Iraqi insurgents
and the al-Qaida network in Iraq and the ceasefire declared by the
radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for his Mahdi Army
militia.
However, the US military warned that the al-Qaida members are
still active and intend to stir up sectarian violence.
Moreover, Iraq has failed to achieve tangible achievement in
national reconciliation, which could endanger the improved security
situation.
(Xinhua News Agency January 2, 2008)
