A suicide bomber struck outside a cafe in a Kurdish village near Iranian border, killing 26 people in a part of the province where U.S. forces are waging an offensive against Sunni insurgents.
The blast ripped the coffee shop near a market of Iranian goods in the village of Ahmad Maref, 87 miles northeast of Baghdad. 33 people were reportedly wounded. The village is home to about 30 Kurdish families who had been expelled under Saddam Hussein’s rule and returned after his fall. Many Kurds in the area are Shiite Muslims.
The village lies in the remote end of Diyala, a province where U.S. forces have been waging two offensives since mid-June. The sweeps aim to close an escape route for insurgents fleeing a security crackdown in Baghdad and to uproot Al-Qaeda militants and other fighters who use the region as a staging ground for attacks.
Although violence appears to have eased somewhat in Baghdad in past months as U.S. forces stepped up security operations, Diyala has continued to see heavy attacks.
The U.S. military announced the deaths of seven more American service members. Three were killed Friday in two separate Baghdad explosions, along with an Iraqi interpreter.
A U.S. soldier died of wounds sustained in combat operations in western Baghdad on Thursday. Three other service members were killed Thursday two Marines in western Anbar province and a soldier in Baghdad.
With their deaths, at least 3,598 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians.
