Iraq party guest carries deadly secret: Suicide bomber kills 25, wounds 29

BAGHDAD — Sheik Ayyid Salim al-Zubaie held a large party at his house in Abu Ghraib on Sunday to celebrate the release of a family member who had been imprisoned by U.S. forces in Camp Bucca for three years.

But as the guests sat in the garden waiting for dinner to be served, one of them detonated explosives hidden inside his long robe. The bombing killed at least 25 people and wounded at least 29 others, according to Iraqi police.

Also Sunday, the military announced the arrest of a key al-Qaida in Iraq figure believed to have planned the abduction of U.S. journalist Jill Carroll in 2006. A military statement said Salim Abdullah Ashur al-Shujayri, also known as Abu Othman, is a Baghdad leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who oversaw some of the group's most heinous activities.

The Abu Ghraib district where the bomb blast occurred is a mainly Sunni Muslim area about 18 miles west of Baghdad.

"I just lost my brother but I pray to God to save my son," said Abdullah Hamdan, 50, whose 8-year-old son was wounded in the explosion.

A police official from the nearby city of Fallujah, Dawood Suleiman, said many survivors were critically injured. It was not known if the dead included the released detainee or his father.

Sunni insurgents frequently target fellow Sunnis who are seen as supporters of U.S. forces or the Iraqi government, or if they are involved in the Sons of Iraq program to bolster security with Sunni gunmen paid by the U.S. military.

Guests at the party included police and military officials, along with people associated with the Sons of Iraq.

U.S. helicopters picked up some of those most seriously injured in the bombing, presumably to carry them to a military hospital.

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, who was killed.

The statement said U.S. troops also captured another al-Qaida in Iraq figure — Ali Rash Nasir Jiyad al-Shammari — on Aug. 17 in Baghdad. He was accused of being a senior adviser for the terror network and funneling money, weapons and explosives to insurgents in the capital, the military said.

Compiled from The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press