(Adds blasts, bodies found in Baghdad)

By Dean Yates

BAGHDAD, April 30 (Reuters) - A suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives killed 32 people when he blew himself up among mourners at a Shi'ite funeral north of Baghdad on Monday, Iraqi police said.

The attack took place inside a crowded mourning tent in the town of Khalis in volatile Diyala province. More than 60 people had been wounded, police said.

Since U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a security crackdown in Baghdad in February, militants including Sunni Islamist al Qaeda have increasingly focused their attacks outside the capital.

Residents said the funeral had been for the son of a Shi'ite family. The son had been killed by gunmen, they said.

Majed Mansour, a relative of the victim's family, said the traditional three-day mourning period was about to end and the family had just invited all those present to join in a meal before they left when the bomb exploded.

"The blast came from the centre of the tent. It killed many. There was thick smoke, bodies were everywhere. It was complete chaos," Mansour said.

Diyala, a religiously mixed area, has been the scene of fierce fighting between U.S. troops and al Qaeda as well as Sunni Arab insurgents.

Last month, U.S. commanders sent a force of armoured vehicles and 1,000 extra soldiers to the province.

In Baghdad, up to a dozen explosions in quick succession rocked different parts of the city after nightfall and smoke was seen rising from the Green Zone government compound.

Sirens echoed from the Green Zone after the blasts, which sounded like mortar bombs or rockets. Officials had no information on casualties.

Police also found 27 bodies bearing gun shot wounds in Baghdad on Monday, a sign that sectarian death squads are roaming the streets again after a sharp drop in such killings since the Baghdad security plan began.

DEADLY MONTH FOR FOREIGN SOLDIERS

Five U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq over the weekend, the U.S. military said on Monday, raising the number killed this month to over 100 and making April one of the deadliest of the war for U.S. forces.

The toll could increase the pressure on U.S. President George W. Bush, who is fighting a plan by Democrats to set a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq.

He has vowed to veto a war-spending bill from Democrats that requires combat troops to begin leaving by Oct 1. The Democrat-controlled Congress plans to send the bill to Bush on Tuesday.

The security crackdown in Baghdad is seen as a final attempt to halt Iraq's plunge into all-out civil war between majority Shi'ites and once-dominant minority Sunni Arabs.

U.S. commanders acknowledge that the offensive, which has led to the deployment of thousands of extra troops on the streets, has increased the risk of military casualties.

Before the announcement of the latest deaths, the independent www.icasualties.org Web site had put the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq in April at 99.

Some 3,350 U.S. troops and many tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

April has also been a bad month for British forces, with 12 killed, the highest number in a month since March 2003, when 27 died in the opening days of the war.

British Defence Secretary Des Browne made an unannounced visit to Baghdad on Monday. He met Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, officials said. Browne also went to the southern city of Basra, base of the British forces in Iraq. (Additional reporting by Ibon Villelabeitia, Mussab Al-Khairalla, Waleed Ibrahim, Aseel Kami)

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