A female suicide bomber struck black-clad worshippers preparing for Shiite Islam's holiest day, killing at least nine on Wednesday in an attack that highlighted insurgents' increasing use of unconventional tactics in a province that has defied the nationwide trend toward less violence.
An eyewitness said people shouted slogans against al-Qaeda in Iraq as they carried the dead and six wounded away from the scene of the attack near a marketplace in a small Shiite town just 25km northeast of the capital.
The strike underscored difficulties facing US and Iraqi troops as they attempt to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq in Diyala Province, where Sunni extremists are using female suicide bombers and booby-trapped houses to supplement more common warfare.
The US military is now one week into a campaign to root out al-Qaeda fighters and is issuing daily statements about insurgents captured and weapons caches uncovered. Many of the elusive militants were believed to have fled Diyala Province in advance of the countrywide operation, but since then US soldiers and Iraqi civilians have been snared in deadly attacks.
The latest in Diyala came on Wednesday in Khan Bani Saad, 15km south of Baqubah.
A woman wearing a belt lined with explosives blew herself up when she saw Shiite men in black making preparations about 50m from a mosque for a ceremony marking Ashoura, the holiest day in the Shiite calendar, residents and police said.
The explosion took place at about 8:30am near a market as vendors were opening their stalls for the day. Khalaf Ibrahim, 35, said he was walking toward the market to open his cigarettes stall at the time of the blast.
"I heard a big explosion and smoke coming out of the market area," Ibrahim said. "I rushed with other people to see what happened. When I arrived, I saw pieces of flesh, two maimed legs and blood stains on the ground."
"The wounded were screaming for help and I helped carry the wounded to the police cars waiting to take them to the hospital," he said. "Some people were shouting anti-al-Qaeda slogans as they were carrying the wounded and the dead."
Police and hospital officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were afraid of being attacked, said nine people were killed and six wounded. The US military's figures were seven dead and 15 wounded.
Sunni Arab militants have repeatedly targeted Ashoura processions, with hundreds killed by mortar shelling or car bombings since 2003. As a precaution, authorities announced a 48-hour ban on the use of vehicles in Baghdad and nine provinces south of the capital starting yesterday at dusk.
Ashoura commemorates the death in a 7th century battle of Imam Hussein, one of Shiite Islam's most revered saints, whose tomb is in the city of Karbala, about 100km south of Baghdad.
Although female suicide bombings have been fairly rare in Iraq, extremists have been using women more frequently in recent months. US officials say this indicates the militants are running short of male volunteers. However, it could also be that al-Qaeda believes women are less likely to be searched and that explosives are easier to conceal under women's clothing.
Wednesday's bombing was the fourth female suicide attack in Iraq in three months. All have taken place in Diyala, a largely tree-lined farm region with a checkerboard pattern of Shiite and Sunni communities adjacent to one another.
Such terrain is far trickier for fighting insurgents and preventing attacks than the western desert of Anbar, where US forces and Sunni tribes ousted al-Qaeda last year.
Unable to fire at sights across the horizon, the military must instead at times raid homes.
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