(Adds claim of responsibility) BAGHDAD, April 23 (Reuters) - Suicide bombers killed 23 people in a series of attacks in Iraq on Monday, including one in a Baghdad restaurant near the heavily fortified Green Zone compound that killed three, Iraqi police said. Near the northern city of Mosul, a suicide car bomb killed 10 people and wounded 20 in an attack on the office of a Kurdish political party, police said. An Iraqi militant group, Ansar al-Sunna, claimed responsibility for the Mosul attack in an Internet statement, saying the attack was in retaliation for the stoning to death by Yazidis of a woman who had converted to Islam. Yazidis are members of an ancient religious minority and live in northern Iraq and Syria. The authenticity of the claim could not be verified, but it was posted on a Web site used by insurgents in Iraq. A senior Iraqi police officer on Sunday speculated that the execution-style killing appeared to be in retaliation for the incident that happened several weeks ago. Ansar al-Sunna is a Sunni Muslim militant group that has claimed several abductions and killings since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. In the city of Baquba, a suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into a police building, killing 10 people and wounding 10 others, police said. Police in Baghdad said a suicide bomber had walked into the restaurant near the Green Zone in the mixed area of the Karradet Mariam neighbourhood. They said 10 people were wounded. A suicide bomber earlier this month killed one lawmaker and wounded two dozen other people in an attack on parliament inside the Green Zone. The compound houses various government buildings and embassies. (Additional reporting by Inal Ersan)
