Iranians among 17 to die in Iraq bombings

BOMB attacks killed 17 people, including Iranian pilgrims visiting a Shia shrine and shoppers at a Shi'ite market, in Baghdad yesterday.

More than 100 people were wounded in the attacks on the Iraqi capital involving several roadside bombs and cars packed with explosives.

With most of the casualties belong to Iraq's Shia majority, it is believed the attacks were carried out by Sunni insurgents, who were aligned to Saddam Hussein's regime and who have sought to provoke civil war since his overthrow.

Police said the deadliest strike targeted a marketplace in Baiyaa, a Shi'ite neighbourhood in south-west Baghdad. A car parked outside a shopping area exploded around midday, killing six people and injuring 42. Hospital officials confirmed the casualties.

An hour earlier, near-simultaneous blasts hit two groups of Iranian pilgrims near the gold-domed Moussa al-Kadhim mosque in the Shi'ite neighbourhood of Kazimiyah, according to security forces.

A pair of bombs killed five pilgrims resting near the shrine, and a car exploded next to a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims in the nearby Shi'ite area of Shula, killing another three people.

Police and medical officials said those two attacks wounded 52 people.

Attacks by Sunni extremists on Shi'ite pilgrims and Iraqi Shi'ites helped fuel a surge of violence between the two main Muslim sects during the height of Iraq's bloodshed between 2005 and 2007, as the insurgency against US forces gave way to sectarian fighting.

Shi'ite pilgrims come from all over the world to visit shrines and mosques in Iraq, but the vast majority of the religious tourists are Iranians.

Earlier, police said a roadside bomb targeting a judge's security convoy in Baghdad killed three people, including two guards, and wounded seven passers-by. The judge was not in the convoy as it drove through Karradah, where Shi'ites and Sunnis live.