BAQUBA: A suicide bombing at the funeral of the son of a tribal leader and anti-Al Qaeda militiaman killed 12 people and wounded 25 others in central Iraq on Sunday, officials said.

The funeral had been for Mudher al-Shallal al-Araki, who was killed in a roadside bombing near his family's home in the restive city of Baquba, north of Baghdad, the previous evening, according to a police colonel and Dr Hussein al-Tamimi from a nearby hospital.

The blast struck at the graveyard where the procession, which included relatives and members of the family's tribe, was due to bury the body.

Araki had been a fighter in the Sahwa, the militia formed of Sunni tribesmen that, from late 2006 began siding with US forces against their co-religionists in Al Qaeda, helping turn the tide of Iraq's insurgency.

But Sunni militants regard them as traitors and often target them for attacks.

Baquba is the capital of confessionally-mixed Diyala province, which remains one of the least stable areas in the country and regularly suffers deadly violence.

It is the latest in a protracted surge in bloodshed, Iraq's worst since 2008 that has forced authorities to appeal for international help in combating militancy just months before general elections.