At least 30 others were wounded in the attack. The bomber arrived at a hall located in the centre of the town where people were gathered to mourn the death of the father of provincial council member Saab Abd Badaywi.
The bomber parked an explosive-laden car outside the hall and then entered the building where he blew himself up.
The toll was expected to rise as many victims were caught in the debris after the roof of the hall caved in following the explosion.
The rescue effort was also hampered because the bomber's car was still parked outside the building.
Rice rejects civil war claims
Meanwhile US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has rejected claims that a civil war was raging in Iraq.
She argued that the conflict in the US-occupied country had no separatist dimension and no Iraqi ethnic group had "opted out."
"Our civil war began quite dramatically when the South opted out of the United States of America," Ms Rice explained in an interview with Time magazine.
"Well, the Kurds haven't opted out of Iraq. The Shia haven't opted out of Iraq."
The US Secretary of State was referring to the US Civil War that was sparked in 1861 when 11 southern slave states formally seceded and formed the Confederate States of America.
Debate about whether Iraq was already amid a full-blown civil war flared again on Thursday when General John Abizaid, head of the
US Central Command warned Congress that Iraq could slide into such a conflict if the sectarian violence there was not stopped.
Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd and his Republican colleague, Chuck Hagel said the military was being too diplomatic, that civil war in Iraq was already underway.
While acknowledging "problems" with violence, Ms Rice insisted she did not think Iraq was going to slide into civil war.
She said the tell-tale sign of a civil war is a breakdown of "institutions of unity" and they, in her view, were still functioning in Iraq.
"People haven't opted out of a unified Iraq. People haven't opted out of the democratic institutions. There are some people outside the system who seem to be intent on trying to cause the breakdown of those institutions. But people haven't opted out of them," she said.