Suicide bomb kills 35 in Iraq

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TUZ KHURMATU, Iraq, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- At least 35 people were killed by a suicide bomber, and many more injured, near a Shiite mosque in northern Iraq, police said Wednesday.

The attack, during a funeral in the town of Tuz Khurmatu, 90 kilometers (56 miles) south of the city of Kirkuk, injured two senior Iraqi government officials. One was Ahmed Abdul-Wahed, deputy governor of the largely Sunni Salaheddin province in north-central Iraq, CNN reported.

Last month, at least 208 Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police officials were killed in attacks, figures from Iraq's Interior, Defense and Health ministries indicate.

The rise in violence coincides with three weeks of demonstrations in predominately Sunni Muslim provinces, with protesters demanding the Shiite-led government stop what they call second-class treatment of Iraq's Sunni community, CNN said.