Sectarian tensions, already at a peak, were further inflamed on Saturday in Iraq when bombers blew up a car in the Shia holy city of Karbala and bombers blew up a well-known Shia tomb in Taz Khurmatu in northern Iraq, police said. At least 60 people, including 16 policemen, were killed in fresh violence across the country.The car bomb in Karbala killed at least eight and wounded 25. The bombing targeted a busy shopping street in the west of the city, as a police patrol passed by. Akil Mohammed, 30, said he saw two people drive the car into the street.
In other violence, 12 farm labourers were shot to death in an orchard on Saturday morning in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. They included both Shias and Sunnis, a relative of the victims said. Police said that seven more bodies were found in Baghdad. Two policemen were killed and five wounded when a bomb targeted the funeral procession west of Baghdad of an Al-Arabiya journalist killed on Wednesday in Samarra where she had gone to report on the shrine bombing, police said. The procession had earlier also been shot at with one more policemen killed. Three people were killed when a rocket hit a house in Baghdad. One worker was killed when gunmen stormed a factory.