BAGHDAD — Two suicide bombers attacked a wedding convoy Thursday as it passed through a busy market area in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 35 people and wounding at least 65, police said.
As police and rescue crews rushed to the site after the first explosion in the town of Balad Ruz, the second bomb was detonated, police said. They said one of the attackers was a woman.
The double bombing was the latest in a series of high-profile attacks in Diyala, a largely Sunni area. Attackers appear to be targeting members of the Awakening movement, mainly Sunnis who have joined with U.S. forces to fight the Sunni group al-Qaida in Iraq.
Women are involved in an increasing number of attacks. On Tuesday, a female suicide bomber struck in the village of Mukhisa, killing one and wounding five, all members of the Awakening movement. On April 21, a female bomber blew herself up in the home of a group of Sunni Awakening members, killing three.
Four days earlier, an attacker wearing an explosives vest killed 55 people at a funeral for Awakening members in a Diyala village.
In central Baghdad on Thursday, a car bomb targeting a U.S. military convoy killed an American soldier, the military said. Three suspects who were detained tested positive for explosive compounds, it said.
In the Baghdad district of Sadr City, Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. troops continued to battle fighters tied to the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Police said two Mahdi Army hideouts were raided, leading to clashes in which seven militiamen were killed and 16 wounded. A bombing in the area killed an Iraqi patrolman, police said.
Also Thursday, a delegation of five Iraqi lawmakers traveled to Tehran to outline evidence that Iranian security forces were arming Shiite militias. Other lawmakers said the Iraqi government had evidence that fighters were using Iranian-made arms in Sadr City as well as in the southern cities of Diwaniyah and Basra. U.S. military officials have made similar assertions.
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