A suicide car bomber struck a funeral in northern Iraq on Sunday, killing 25 people and wounding 30 others, TV reports said.

A correspondent with the Qatar-based al-Jazeera television said the attack took place in the city of Tal Afar near Mosul, 400 km north of Baghdad.

People were gathering at local headquarters of the Kurdish Democratic Party to mourn an official of the party killed the previous day, when the bomber burst into the site.

Gunmen blocked the road and clashed with the arriving US forces and Iraqi police, reflecting the boldness of insurgents encouraged by the retarded political process.

The attack appeared to be one of the deadliest since the Iraqi transitional government was formed on Thursday.

It brought to at least 15 the total of car bombings in the past three days, leaving more than 150 casualties in the renewed surge of attacks.

(Xinhua News Agency May 2, 2005)