Baghdad (CNN) — A suicide car bomber targeted a Shiite funeral procession in the Iraqi capital Friday, killing 31 people and wounding 60 others, two police officials said.
The blast occurred as mourners passed by an outdoor market and headed toward a hospital in Baghdad’s Zafarniya district to recover the bodies of three relatives shot the night before in the western part of the city, the officials said.
The police officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release details to the media.
The bombing is the latest in a series of attacks in the nation that have killed more than 200 people this year. They occurred amid a political crisis raising fears of a return to the sectarian violence of last decade — the Sunni-Shiite hostilities that engulfed Iraq at the height of the war.
Most of those killed in recent weeks were Shiite pilgrims marking Arbaeen, the end of a 40-day mourning period, officials said.
There has been a decrease in overall violence in Iraq since the war, but the latest bloodshed has raised concerns about the ability of Iraqi security forces to ensure order, particularly after the United States withdrew troops at the end of 2011.
As for the political ferment, Iraq’s Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders have squared off in recent weeks over an arrest warrant for Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who is accused of organizing his security detail into a death squad that targeted government and military officials.
The arrest warrant was issued shortly after the vice president’s Sunni-backed Iraqiya party announced it would boycott Parliament, saying Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was cutting it out of the decision-making process.
Al-Hashimi has denied the charges, saying the accusations are politically motivated amid the rivalry between his political bloc and al-Maliki’s Shiite majority bloc.
The situation has been further inflamed with a political bloc loyal to radical, anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr calling for the dissolution of Parliament and early elections.
As for the Friday attack, authorities believe Col. Norman Dakhil may have been the target of the bomber.
Dakhil and his family were in the procession making their way to the hospital to collect bodies of three relatives, including his brother, when the bomb exploded, police said.
Gunmen opened fire on the three relatives the day before in Baghdad’s al-Yarmouk neighborhood.
The colonel escaped the suicide bombing unharmed, police officials said.
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