A bomber wearing a suicide vest killed 20 people and wounded 30 in a cafe in a volatile province north-east of Baghdad on Wednesday, police said.
The attack took place in Mandali, a mainly Shi’ite Kurd town about 100km north-east of Baghdad near the Iranian border.
Local mayor Abdul Hussein al-Qaralusy put the death toll at 11, with 24 wounded. Qaralusy said the bomber was wearing a suicide vest when he walked into the centre of the cafe and blew himself up.
Mandali is in volatile Diyala province, a large, religiously mixed region which has seen some of the worst violence since the United States-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The US military has sent an extra 3 000 troops to Diyala in an attempt to quell the violence.
Sectarian killings and attacks by Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda occur regularly in Diyala, a mainly Sunni Arab province which also has significant Shi’ite and Kurdish populations. – Reuters