Female suicide bomber kills at least 9 Shiites

The explosion took place near a market.

BAGHDAD (AP) — A female suicide bomber struck black-clad worshippers preparing for Shiite Islam’s holiest day, killing at least nine Wednesday in an attack that highlighted insurgents’ widening array of tactics against a U.S.-led offensive in key areas on Baghdad’s doorstep.

A witness said people shouted slogans against al-Qaida in Iraq as they carried the dead and wounded from the blast scene near a marketplace in Diyala province — a region of farmland and palm groves northeast of Baghdad that holds strategic havens for extremists.

Diyala remains one of Iraq’s most violent regions and is a main battleground for U.S. and Iraqi troops trying to overwhelm al-Qaida strongholds in the capital and elsewhere around the country.

Many extremists fled for safer ground before the new offensive began last week, reducing the expected threats from roadside bombs and ambush attacks. But insurgents left behind a more unconventional — but still deadly — landscape of booby traps and tripwire explosives.

The latest bloodshed also came from a new tactic that appears to be developing in Diyala: a woman suicide bomber.

The blast in Khan Bani Saad, a Shiite village nine miles south of Baqouba, was the fourth suicide attack by a woman in Iraq in three months. All have taken place in Diyala.

U.S. officials say this indicates the militants are running short of male volunteers. However, it could also be that al-Qaida in Iraq believes women are less likely to be searched and that explosives are easier to conceal under women’s clothing.

In Wednesday’s attack, the woman blew herself up about 50 yards from a mosque as Shiite men in black made preparations for a ceremony marking Ashoura, the holiest day in the Shiite religious calendar, according to residents and police.

The explosion took place about 8:30 a.m. near a market as vendors were opening their stalls.

Police and hospital officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were afraid of being attacked, said nine people were killed and six wounded. The U.S. military’s figures were seven dead and 15 wounded.

Sunni Arab militants have repeatedly targeted Ashoura processions, with hundreds killed by mortar shelling or car bombings since 2003. As a precaution, authorities announced a 48-hour ban on the use of vehicles in Baghdad and nine provinces south of the capital starting Thursday at dusk.

Ashoura, which comes later this week, commemorates the death in a 7th century battle of Imam Hussein, one of Shiite Islam’s most revered saints. His tomb is in Karbala, about 60 miles south of Baghdad.