Bomb kills 20 at funeral after weeks of revenge attacks in Iraqi town

A suicide bomber killed at least 20 people at a funeral in Muqdadiyah on Monday and wounded at least 40 others, according to security officials.

The town, about 90km northeast of the Iraqi capital, has been hit by a spate of revenge attacks following a suicide bombing last month on a popular cafe.

Among those killed at the funeral for a well-known member of the Beni Tamim, a major local tribe, was a senior local leader of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a Shia militia, the officials told AP.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but suicide bombings are a tactic almost exclusively employed in Iraq by the Islamic State [IS], a Sunni militant group.

In a report released earlier this month, Amnesty International urged Iraqi authorities to investigate retaliatory attacks in the town which the organisation says have included the killing and abduction of Sunni men and the destruction of property belonging to the town's Sunni communities by Shia militias.

The attacks, said Amnesty, have come since a cafe, which belonged to a member of the Shia community, was targeted in a double suicide bombing on 11 January.

On the evening of the cafe attacks, and in the days after, Amnesty - which said it had interviewed eyewitnesses and cross-checked information with articles, photos and videos -  reported that armed Shia militia members "went on a rampage, abducting and killing Sunni men and burning and destroying Sunni mosques, shops and property". 

Some of the attacks took place "in broad daylight, in some cases in front of the security forces who did not intervene," according to Amnesty's report.

The head of Muqdadiya's City Council, Adnan al-Tamimi, a member of the Shia community, told Amnesty that the number of people killed was exaggerated and said those killed were not only Sunni men targeted by Shia militias.

The attack comes after a Sunday bombing at a market in a Shia area of northern Baghdad. At least 39 people were killed, and at least 76 wounded, in the attack claimed by IS.