Shi'te shrine bombed

2006-01-05 13:06

Karbala - About 50 people were killed or wounded on Thursday when a suicide bomber blew himself up near a Shi'ite shrine in the southern Iraqi city of Karbala, said police.

It was the second bomb attack in Karbala in as many days.

Ambulances rushed to the scene to carry off the wounded as stunned survivors - many of them street vendors and shoppers - looked on in horror.

Body parts and items of clothing lying in pools of blood were pictured on Iraqi television, which was broadcasting live from the attack site in the middle of a busy market area next to a shrine.

A man on a microphone called for people to be calm and not cluster together.

A police officer said 50 people were either killed or wounded, but he was unable to give a detailed casualty toll.

Karbala, 110km south of Baghdad, has been relatively quiet for the past year, but the peace was shattered on Wednesday when a car bomb exploded in the city - one of the holiest for Shi'ite Muslims - wounding two people.

Iraqi police took full control of security in Karbala from the US-led military forces in September last year.

The last large-scale attack in Karbala occurred in December 2004 when 14 were killed and 57 wounded by a car bomb.

- SAPA