Suicide Blast Kills 26 in N. Iraq

Realtives of a victim in a roadside bomb stand by his bedside at a local hospital on Sunday in Baghdad, Iraq. A roadside bomb struck a police patrol Sunday in a culturally mixed area of Baghdad, killing two and wounding four others, police said. (Karim Kadim - AP)

BAGHDAD, July 16 -- A suicide bomber detonated explosives Sunday inside a cafe packed with Shiite Muslims in northern Iraq, killing 26 people and injuring 22, an Iraqi general said.

The attack occurred about 8:30 p.m. in the outdoor market in Tuz Khurmatu, a mostly Turkmen city 130 miles north of Baghdad, Maj. Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin said.

The blast collapsed the ceiling of the one-story cafe, burying many of the victims, witnesses said. Hours afterward, rescuers were still sifting through the debris looking for the dead or injured.

One of Iraq's main ethnic groups, Turkmens follow both the Sunni and Shiite traditions of Islam. Amin said Shiites favored the cafe because it was near a Shiite mosque. But friction exists among Iraq's Turkmen and Kurdish populations, and the motive for the attack was unclear.

In southern Iraq, a British soldier was killed and another wounded during a raid against a "terrorist suspect" in Basra, the British military said. British troops arrested a top Shiite militia leader in the city, Iraqi police said, but it was unclear whether the two events were linked.

In Baghdad, gunmen seized a top Oil Ministry official, Adel Kazzaz, in eastern Baghdad, ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said. The attackers beat his bodyguards and whisked him away, Jihad said.

The kidnapping came one day after gunmen abducted the head of Iraq's National Olympic Committee and 30 other people. Six were set free Sunday in eastern Baghdad, left blindfolded and unharmed, Iraq's Sport Journalist Union said. There was no word on the other hostages.