BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber blew himself up Sunday in the midst of a celebration to welcome home an Iraqi detainee released from U.S. custody, killing at least 25 people, Iraqi officials said.
The U.S. military, meanwhile, announced the arrest of a figure in al-Qaeda in Iraq who allegedly planned the 2006 kidnapping of American journalist Jill Carroll — one of the highest-profile attacks against Westerners in Iraq.
The suicide attack occurred inside one of several tents set up outside a house in the Abu Ghraib area on Baghdad’s western outskirts, according to residents and police. It was unclear if the former detainee was among the casualties.
Residents and police said Ayyid Salim al-Zubaie, a local sheik in the mainly Sunni area, had invited dozens of guests to a banquet in honor of his son, who was released earlier in the day from Camp Bucca in southern Iraq.
Residents said the detainee-son had quarreled with al-Qaeda members while in detention and may have been the target of the attack.
Yassir al-Jumaili, a doctor at the hospital in nearby Fallujah where most of the wounded were taken, gave the death toll as 25 and said at least 29 other people were wounded.
The announcement of the arrest of Salim Abdullah Ashur al-Shujayri, also known as Abu Othman, was a major breakthrough in a series of kidnappings.
He was captured Aug. 11 in Baghdad and accused of being “the planner behind the kidnapping” of Carroll, a Christian Science Monitor reporter who was seized Jan. 7, 2006 and released three months later, according to the military.
The statement also said al-Shujayri’s associates were involved in the kidnappings of Christian peace activists and British aid worker Margaret Hassan, but did not elaborate.
Also Sunday, the U.S. military said a woman wearing a bomb-laden vest surrendered to Iraqi police in Baqubah rather than blow herself up.
She led police to a second suicide vest, and a 13-year-old girl was arrested, the military said.
