A SUICIDE bomber killed 37 mourners and left 45 wounded at the funeral of a Shia murdered the day before.

The bomber blew himself up at a cemetery near Baqouba in the bloodiest attack on a day in which nearly 60 people were killed in a resurgence of post-election violence.

The site, 30 miles north of Baghdad, was left scattered with body parts after mortar shells and gunfire hit the area just before the explosion.

Mourners had gathered to bury the nephew of Ahmed al-Bakka, the local head of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s Dawa party. Mr al-Bakka was wounded on Tuesday in an assassination attempt in which his nephew was killed. No immediate claim of responsibility was made for the attack.

Elsewhere a car bomber killed at least seven people after targeting a police patrol in a market in Doura, south Baghdad. Tight security was also in place across the capital after kidnappers seized the sister of Bayan Jabr, the Shia Interior Minister whose forces have been accused by Sunnis of running death squads.

A previously unknown group claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and set conditions for the release of their hostage, including the freeing of some Iraqi women prisoners, al-Jazeera television said.

The group, which called itself the Revenge Brigade, said in a statement that a decision to increase fuel prices, which they held the Interior Minister responsible for, had to be withdrawn. The Al-Jazeera TV channel received a tape showing the minister’s sister but said that it would not air it for “moral” reasons.

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