Suicide bombers kill 26 at Iraq wedding

ISIL believed to be responsible for twin blasts in Tikrit against displaced family from Anbar tribe opposed to militants

BAGHDAD // Twenty-six members of an Iraqi wedding party were killed and dozens wounded when a twin suicide bombing struck celebrations in a village near Tikrit, a government spokesman said yesterday.

The attack, which took place late on Wednesday, began when one suicide bomber wearing an explosives- laden belt walked into the wedding party assembled in an open area of Hajaj, about 130 kilometres north of Baghdad.

The bomber detonated his explosives, only to be followed by the second attacker who blew himself up when people had gathered to help the victims of the first blast, said provincial spokesman Ali Al Hamdani.

In addition to the 26 people killed, most of whom were children, about 67 were wounded.

Authorities feared the death toll would rise.

“The first blew himself up at 8.30pm amid men who were dancing during the celebration,” a police lieutenant colonel said. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack but suspicion was likely to fall on ISIL, which has staged similar attacks in the past.

The wedding party was for a family that had been displaced from Iraq’s western Anbar province where it was affiliated with a major anti-ISIL tribe.

ISIL captured Tikrit – which is in Salaheddin province – during the summer of 2014.

Iraqi forces drove the militants from Tikrit in April 2015, but ISIL has since managed to launch deadly attacks in and around the city. The extremists have also used large-scale attacks in an effort to distract from its losses as Iraqi forces battle to retake all of Mosul, the country’s second- largest city, from the group.

Mosul fell to ISIL in the summer of 2014, along with Tikrit and large swaths of northern and western Iraq, but now remains the group’s last significant urban area in the country.