KERBALA, 10 December 2006 — A powerful car bomb killed at least five people and wounded dozens more close to one of Iraq’s holiest Shiite shrines in the central city of Kerbala yesterday, officials said.
Elsewhere, sectarian and insurgent attacks claimed 10 more lives. Salim Kadhim, spokesman for Kerbala’s health department, said that five men had been killed and 47 people wounded — including two women and a child — in the car bombing, according to an initial toll.
A security official confirmed the figures. The blast erupted at 11:00 a.m. (0800 GMT) in Al-Abbas street, a few hundred meters (yards) from the Imam Al-Abbas mausoleum.
Several civilian cars and a row of shops caught fire. Despite thick smoke and flames, crowds of bystanders converged on the scene but were driven back by police, fearful of follow-up blasts, a hallmark of attacks by Iraq’s insurgent car bomb cells.
Kerbala city authorities ordered roads into the city closed to traffic from other towns, allowing only residents to circulate in the popular Shiite destination until the situation stabilizes.
The attack will probably be blamed on Sunni extremists and came hot on the heels of a call by Shiite Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki for a reconciliation conference to stem raging sectarian violence.
Bomb attacks on Shiite shrines and civilians have been one of the major motors driving the cycle of sectarian revenge attacks which have brought the country to the brink of civil war.
More than 100 Iraqis are killed every day in insurgent and sectarian violence and this week a major review of US strategy described the situation as “grave and deteriorating” and warned it could trigger a regional war.
Maliki has summoned the leaders of Iraq’s factions to a national peace conference on Dec. 16 but already yesterday at least one major Sunni group vowed to stay away.
Shiite leaders have also warned that they will not attend if figures linked to the Baath party of ousted President Saddam Hussein — some of whom have roles in the insurgency — are invited.
Police said four people were killed, including a 10-year-old girl, in separate and indiscriminate attacks by insurgent gunmen on crowds of civilians in Baquba, north of Baghdad.
In the northern city of Mosul a car bomb in the central Yarmuk neighborhood killed three people and wounded another three, police Col. Abdul Karim Al-Juburi said.
In Baghdad, primary school headmaster Yussif Faraj Al-Shimari was shot dead in the restive southern neighborhood of Dura, while two more people died in mortar attacks on the mixed district of Adhamiyah, police said.
Overnight, Baghdad police found the bodies of 10 people who had been trussed up and shot dead at close range, then dumped in the street.
