The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Baghdad

Relatives wept as the remains of victims from a suicide bombing at a funeral were placed into coffins Wednesday, while police increased the attack's death toll by four to 36 killed.

Tuesday's attack was a reminder of the dangers that persist despite the recent decline in violence in Iraq and of the peril for mass gatherings in a country where the bereaved often find themselves targets.

The bomber detonated his explosives amid men gathered in the capital's eastern Zayouna neighborhood for the funeral of Nabil Hussein Jassim, a retired Iraqi Army officer killed last week in a car bombing blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq that had killed 14 people.

"At the end of a three-day mourning period, a terrorist blew up himself in the mourning tent, leaving bodies scattered," one of the wounded men, who gave his name only as Abu Hasanain, told AP Television from his bed in al-Kindi Teaching Hospital Wednesday.

In the same Baghdad neighborhood of Zayouna, a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol wounded six people Wednesday - three police and three civilians, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information.

To the north in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, police said they detained a senior local al-Qaida fighter in a joint operation with police from nearby Tikrit on Tuesday evening.