BAGHDAD, (Reuters) – Two suicide bombers wearing  vests full of explosives blew themselves up in separate attacks  yesterday, killing 76 people, including many Iranian pilgrims,  in what appeared to be Iraq’s bloodiest day in over a year.

Shortly after the two attacks, the authorities in Baghdad  said they had arrested the purported leader of an al  Qaeda-affiliated insurgent group, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. The  identity of the man detained was being verified, officials said.
The blasts occurred as apprehension grows in Iraq ahead of a  pullout by U.S. troops from city centres in June, a move that  officials say insurgents may try to take advantage of.

A year-end election also threatens to stir a resurgence in  violence just as the sectarian bloodshed and insurgency  triggered by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion appeared to be receding.

One of the attacks occurred near Muqdadiya, 80 km (50 miles)  northeast of Baghdad, in the volatile province of Diyala. The  suicide bomber targeted a group of Iranian pilgrims in a crowded  roadside restaurant at lunchtime.

All but two of the 48 dead were Iranian pilgrims, who have  flocked to Iraq in the millions since the fall of Sunni Arab  dictator Saddam Hussein to visit Shi’ite Muslim religious sites.  Seventy-seven people were wounded, police said.

It was the single deadliest attack since 50 people were  killed by a suicide bomber in a restaurant near the northern  city of Kirkuk on Dec. 11 last year.

“Words can’t express it. It is a dirty, cowardly terrorist  act,” said Abdulnasir al-Muntasirbillah, who marked his first  day in office as Diyala governor yesterday.

The other blast took place in central Baghdad as a group of  Iraqi national police were distributing relief supplies to  families driven from their homes at the height of the violence.

Twenty-eight people died, and 50 were wounded, police said.  At least five children and two Red Crescent workers were among  the dead. Some witnesses said the bomber was a woman.

Red Crescent food parcels, police helmets and packets of  biscuits were strewn in the blood pooled on the pavement, while  a woman in a black robe wailed and beat her thighs in anguish.

“It is a suicide bomber. Obviously that has the fingerprints  of al Qaeda,” said Baghdad security spokesman Major-General  Qassim Moussawi.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said al Qaeda was trying  to trigger broader conflict by targeting the most vulnerable.

“They don’t differentiate between people. Their ideology is  killing,” Dabbagh told the U.S.-funded al-Hurra TV station.

Violence in Iraq has fallen sharply over the past year, but  insurgents such as Sunni Islamist al Qaeda still carry out  attacks.

Yet, while the bombings remain routine, it has been a while  since so many people were killed on a single day.
Last June 17, a truck bomb in Baghdad killed 63, two bombs  on March 6, 2008, killed 68, also in Baghdad, and female suicide  bombers killed 99 in a Baghdad pet market on Feb. 1, 2008.