BAQUBA, Iraq (Reuters):

A suicide bomber detonated a vest packed with explosives in Iraq's Diyala province yesterday, killing 13 neighbourhood patrol volunteers and a U.S. soldier.

U.S. forces said the explosion struck a foot patrol near a building where a city council meeting was to be held in Kanaan, near Baquba, capital of Diyala province north of Baghdad. One U.S. soldier was killed and 10 were wounded.

Police said the building was also being used to recruit volunteers for neighbourhood patrols to fight al Qaeda militants and all 13 Iraqi men killed were recruits. Ten recruits were wounded.

Gruesome picture

A Reuters photographer saw the bodies of 13 males in civilian clothes taken in vans to a morgue. One woman wailed next to the body of her husband: "Who will raise your son?"

U.S. forces are paying mostly Sunni Arab men to join neighbourhood patrols to fight Sunni al Qaeda militants, a tactic Washington says has helped achieve a 60 per cent drop in attacks in Iraq since June.

But the patrols have been increasingly targeted by militants, especially in provinces like Diyala, where U.S. commanders say al Qaeda has regrouped after being pushed out of other parts of Iraq.

U.S. commanders said they had found a torture chamber in Diyala province with chains on the walls and a battery connected to an iron bed and said it was proof of al Qaeda activity. One of the other main factors U.S. commanders credit for the decline in violence is a ceasefire by followers of the Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. In a development welcomed by U.S. forces, Sadr's spokesman said the cleric was considering extending the six-month truce after it expires in February.

Sadr led uprisings against U.S. troops in 2004 and his militia was later described by U.S. commanders as their greatest threat. He surprised Iraqis and U.S. forces when he ordered a six-month truce in August.