BAQUBA: Twin suicide blasts ripped through a wedding party in Iraq yesterday, killing at least 35 people and wounding 66.
The suicide bombers blew themselves up at Balad Ruz, 75km north of Baghdad in the province of Diyala in a street where guests were gathering on the traditional day for weddings.
They detonated their explosive vests in quick succession, said Major General Abdel Karim Al Rubaie, head of the provincial military command.
"The first bomber blew himself up amid a crowd of people. Minutes later another bomber blew himself up as people were trying to rescue the victims of the first attack."
Security
Earlier in the day, a car bomb blew up in central Baghdad as a US military patrol passed, killing at least eight people and wounding 21, security officials said.
A US armoured car was badly damaged.
Two US soldiers were killed in separate bomb attacks. One soldier was killed in a blast during a patrol in northern Nineveh province. The second died of his wounds after his vehicle was attacked by a roadside bomb in central Baghdad yesterday.
The latest deaths brought the number of US troops killed in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 4,064.
The violence came as Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr refused talks with Iraqi legislators visiting neighbouring Iran in a bid to end clashes between his fighters and troops.
"Moqtada Al Sadr did not permit his leaders to meet the Iraqi delegation," said Sheikh Salah Al Obeidi, his spokesman in Najaf.
"Sadr insists that the crisis can be solved only through a parliamentary initiative backed by President Jalal Talabani and speaker Mahmud Mashhadani."
The commander of US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, gave his backing to Baghdad's efforts to broker a deal with Sadr and renewed US concern over Iran's role in Iraq.
Speaking after an hour-long meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London, Petraeus said there was widespread concern about Iranian backing for attacks in Iraq, despite Tehran's denials.
In another development, a Kuwaiti man released from the US prison in Guantanamo Bay in 2005 has carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq, his cousin told Al Arabiya television yesterday.
A friend of Abdullah Saleh Al Ajmi in Iraq informed his family that Abdullah carried out the attack in Mosul, his cousin Salem told the Dubai-based television channel.
Meanwhile, a US Senate panel has agreed unanimously to block the Defence Department from funding Iraq reconstruction projects worth more than $2 million and to try to force Baghdad to cover the costs of training and equipping the country's security forces.
The provision, included in a 2009 defence policy bill approved this week by the Senate Armed Services Committee, comes as Democrats draft a similar provision within separate legislation that would cover this year's war spending.
