Suicide bomber attacks party in Iraq, kills 22

BAGHDAD – A woman wearing a suicide vest blew herself up Monday at a coming-home party for an Iraqi police sergeant detained by U.S. forces for almost a year, killing 22 people and wounding 33, a high-ranking official said.

The party was thrown for Adnan Shukri al-Timimi at his house, not far from the police station in Balad Ruz, a city 30 miles southeast of Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province. Al-Timimi was killed along with his parents and 11 high-ranking police officials, including the chief of the local station, said the official in the Iraqi-led Diyala Operations Center, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Also killed were at least eight children, some of them related to al-Timimi.

It was not clear what al-Timimi had been charged with, but police said he’d been accused of collaborating with an Iranian-backed militia. Police said he’d been detained at the U.S.-run Camp Bucca, a detention center in Basra, but the U.S. military did not confirm that.

The agriculturally rich, religiously mixed Diyala province saw some of the most vicious sectarian fighting of the last five years.