Suicide bomber kills 12 at Sunni funeral in Iraq

September 23, 2013

Baghdad, Sep 23: A suicide bomber struck a Sunni funeral in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 12 people, Iraqi officials said, a day after blasts targeting Shia mourners killed more than 70.

Major attacks have alternatively hit Sunnis, Shias, and then Sunnis again over the past three days.

Iraq was ravaged by bloody Sunni-Shia violence that peaked in 2006-2007 and killed thousands of people, and there are persistent fears of a return to all-out sectarian conflict.

The suicide bombing in the Dura area of south Baghdad hit a funeral tent for a Sunni man who had been shot dead three days before, and also wounded 46 people.

On Saturday, two bombings targeted people mourning a tribal sheikh in Sadr City, a Shia district of north Baghdad, killing at least 73 and wounding more than 200.

And on Friday, two bombs exploded in a Sunni mosque near Samarra, north of Baghdad, killing 18 and wounding 21.

The United Nations had warned against revenge attacks for the Sadr City bombings.

“Retaliation can only bring more violence and it is the responsibility of all leaders to take strong action not to let violence escalate further,” Gyorgy Busztin, the UN chief’s deputy special representative for Iraq, said in a statement.

“Attacks like these are perpetrated by a small minority of terrorists who wish to destabilise Iraq,” the British embassy said of the Sadr City blasts.

It called on “all political, religious and community leaders to unite against those who perpetrate these crimes”.

Mourners placed coffins containing the bodies of victims of the Sadr City bombings atop vehicles for transport to Najaf on Sunday for burial near the shrine of Imam Ali, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam.

A bare metal frame was all that remained of a large funeral tent at the scene of the explosions. Debris including broken plastic furniture and bottles of water distributed to mourners littered the ground.

Eighteen more people died in other violence on Saturday, including 11 members of the security forces, and four people shot dead at a Baghdad alcohol shop.

It was the United Nations’ International Day of Peace, which calls for a “complete global cessation of hostilities for one day”.

In other violence on Sunday, attacks in Nineveh province in Iraq’s north killed two police and a soldier and wounded seven people.

And in the northern city of Kirkuk, a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle near the home of a Christian MP, wounding 47 people including three of the lawmaker’s children.

Violence in Iraq has reached a level this year not seen since 2008, a surge in unrest that authorities have so far failed to stem.

With the latest violence, more than 580 people have been killed this month and over 4,400 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources.

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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