A suicide car bomber blasted two coaches carrying Iranian pilgrims outside a Shia Muslim shrine in Iraq at dawn today, killing 12 people and wounding 41, police and health officials said.
The attack came a day after the US military warned that al Qaeda's new leader in Iraq could order new car bombings after the killing of his predecessor Abu Musab al-Zarqawi a month ago.
The bomber drove his car between the two Iranian coaches as they arrived at the Maithem al-Tamar shrine in Kufa, a religious centre on the outskirts of the main Shia holy city of Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
The burnt-out wrecks of the vehicles lay in the street. Three women in distinctive Iranian dress lay dead. Smoke rose from the charred remains of the bomber's car.
Police said several Iraqi children, who make a living wheeling invalid pilgrims in carts at the shrine, were also caught in the blast. Many sleep there, waiting for business.
Eight of the dead were Iranians, three of those women, the head of Najaf's health service, Munther al-Athari, said. Men, women and children were among the 41 wounded, 22 of whom were Iranian, he added. Earlier, doctors put the death toll at 13.
Shia worshippers have been targeted before in sectarian attacks by Sunni Arab insurgents, and the US military warned on Wednesday of a possible increase in car bomb attacks after the nomination of Abu Ayyub al-Masri to head al Qaeda in Iraq.
Masri, named by Osama bin Laden last week, has a reputation as an organiser of car bombings. One killed over 60 people at a market in a Shia area of Baghdad on Saturday, the deadliest for 3 months. Another killed six in the capital yesterday.
A leading Sunni Arab political group said the attack in Kufa was intended to provoke further sectarian bloodshed.