A suicide bomber made his way into a crowded mosque before blowing himself up in the middle of a packed funeral on Wednesday, killing 42 people and leaving corpses scattered across the floor.

A suicide bomber made his way into a crowded mosque before blowing himself up in the middle of a packed funeral on Wednesday, killing 42 people and leaving corpses scattered across the floor.

The militant struck at the Sayyed al-Shuhada mosque in Tuz Khurmatu, 175 kilometers (110 miles) north of Baghdad, and targeted the funeral of a relative of a politician who was killed by gunmen a day earlier.

No group claimed responsibility, but militants often launch attacks in a bid to destabilize the government and push Iraq back towards the sectarian violence that blighted it from 2005 to 2008.

Niyazi Moamer Oghlu, the secretary general of the provincial council of Salaheddin, which surrounds Tuz Khurmatu, put the toll from the attack at 42 dead and 75 wounded.

Among the wounded were officials and tribal leaders, including Ali Hashem Oghlu, the deputy chief of the Iraqi Turkman Front and a provincial councilor in Salaheddin.

Wednesday's suicide bomb came after a wave of attacks a day earlier killed 26 people and wounded dozens more, shattering a relative calm after a spate of deadly violence last week.

The violence broke four days of relative calm in Iraq following a spate of attacks claimed by Al-Qaeda's front group that killed at least 88 people on January 15-17, according to an AFP tally.