Suicide bomber kills scores near Baghdad

At least 33 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack at a marketplace west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, officials have said.  Tuesday's blast appeared to target a group of tribal leaders and security officials who were touring the crowded market in Abu Ghraib as part of an effort towards national reconciliation. One police source said that the dignitaries were leaving a reconciliation meeting at Abu Ghraib's municipal headquarters when the blast occured.  "Casualties rose to 33 dead and the victims were civilians, including tribal leaders, as well as soldiers," an interior ministry official said. Brigadier-General Qassim Atta, a spokesman for Baghdad army command operations, said: "The suicide bomber targeted a tour of the tribal leaders under the command of Major-General Mared Abdel Hassen [the head of tribal affairs in the interior ministry] and other officers in the market near the town hall." The Cairo-based Baghdadiya TV said that one of its correspondents and a cameraman who had been covering the reconciliation meeting were killed in the blast. Three other journalists were injured in the attack.  First Lieutenant Ahmed Mahmoud, a police official in Abu Ghraib said that at least 29 people, including schoolchildren, had been wounded in the blast.