A car bomber killed up to 50 people at a crowded bus station in the Iraqi holy city of Kerbala on Saturday, police said. Police added that at least 70 other people were wounded in the attack near the Imam Hussein shrine, one of the most important sites for Shiites. Attacks in Kerbala are rare. Witnesses said as many as 15 ambulances rushed to the area and police were firing into the air to disperse crowds that have swarmed near the ambulances.In Baghdad, police said a bomber detonated his vehicle before a checkpoint at the southern Jadriyah bridge, killing eight people and burning several cars in the second major attack on a bridge in the capital in the last two days. Television footage showed the twisted, blackened wreck of what was thought to have been the car used to deliver the bomb as ambulance and rescue services worked to save the wounded.
On Thursday, a truck bomb killed at least seven people on Sarafiya Bridge in northern Baghdad, destroying most of the steel structure and sending several cars plunging into the River Tigris.
Saturday's violence came a day after leaders from across Iraq's sectarian divide pleaded for unity at a special session of parliament, gathering under high security to condemn a bombing that tore through the building on Thursday.
Television footage from the bombing in Kerbala, 110 km (70 miles) southwest of Baghdad, showed wounded being carried from the scene and what appeared to be the charred body of a child. A police source put the death toll at 50 but a director of the al-Husseini hospital in Kerbala said 41 people had been killed and 60 wounded. The attack occurred near a crowded market and some 200 metres from the Imam Hussein shrine, where the grandson of Islam's Prophet Muhammed (
U.S. and Iraqi officials have launched a crackdown in Baghdad that officials hope will give the government breathing space to pull Iraq back from the brink of civil war between Shi'ites and once dominant Sunni Arabs. An al Qaeda-backed group, the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, claimed responsibility in a Web statement for the worst breach of security in Baghdad's most secure area, which killed a member of parliament and wounded two dozen other people in the building's restaurant.
Previous calls for unity by Iraq's leaders have mostly fallen on deaf ears as sectarian violence has spiralled. In the wake of recent violence, Washington and some Iraqi politicians dismissed suggestions the attack signalled a failure of the U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in the capital Three US soldiers and two Iraqi interpreters were killed, while eight other soldiers were wounded in two separate incidents on Saturday, a US statement said.
The announcement came as the new Baghdad security plan entered its 60th day. According to a US military statement, "Two MND-B Soldiers were killed and seven others were wounded when their patrol base came under attack by anti-Iraqi forces south of Baghdad April 12. Two Iraqi interpreters were also killed in the attack." The statement added "A quick reaction force was sent to the scene along with attack aviation helicopters, which quickly repelled the attack."
The statement also noted that the concerned unit had over the past few weeks carried out several raids to clear out militant pockets and arrested 22 militants and found five weapons caches. Two US soldiers were also killed, and another was injured when their car encountered an explosive charge in southern Baghdad last Thursday, to increase the death toll among the US forces to 3,298 so far since the invasion and occupation of Iraq.