Mourners gather at Umm al-Qura mosque in Baghdad for blast victims

Mourners gathered at the Iraqi capital’s biggest Sunni mosque on Monday for the funeral of one of the victims of Sunday’s suicide bomb attack which killed 28 people and left 37 more wounded. 

Reuters/Mohammed Ameen

The attack at the Umm al-Qura mosque in west Baghdad was part of nationwide violence that left 35 people dead just days before the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

The head of Umm al-Qura, Ahmed Abdulghafur al-Samarrai said the bomber walked up to the crowd, covered in bandages, as the mosque chief was giving a speech and detonated his explosives.

Samarrai said he was “100 per cent” certain that al-Qaeda was behind the attack.

The death toll was the highest since 15 August when twin blasts in the southern city of Kut, also blamed on al-Qaeda, killed 40 people.

In addition to the attack at Umm al-Qura, separate bomb and gun attacks around the country on Sunday killed seven other people among them three policemen and left 26 others wounded, according to security officials.

Meanwhile, gunmen on Monday killed two policemen and a member of Sahwa, a movement which joined forces with the US military against al-Qaeda in late 2006.

The attack was at a checkpoint at Baquba, north of Baghdad.