- BAGHDAD: A car bomb outside a restaurant killed three people north of Baghdad on Wednesday, while a roadside bomb wounded seven Iranians on a bus traveling to an important Shiite religious festival, officials said.
The explosives-packed car, which blew up in the town of Taji, some 20 km north of the capital, also wounded 16 people, police and hospital officials said.
The Iranians, meanwhile, were driving through the Sunni neighborhood of Dora in Baghdad early Wednesday when their bus was hit by a roadside bomb, officials said. The Iranians were traveling to Baghdad from the city of Karbala, the officials added. Hundreds of thousands of Shiites are expected to visit Karbala and other shrines across Iraq in the coming days for the 10-days of Ashoura.
Sunni insurgents in Iraq have frequently targeted Shiite shrines and large religious festivals, and killed thousands of people since 2004. They have also attacked Iranians, very few of whom were allowed to visit Iraq’s religious sites under Saddam.
Wednesday’s attack comes four days after bombings near a Shiite shrine in Baghdad killed eight Iranians.