Attack near Iraq shrine kills more than 40

KARBALA, Iraq — A suicide bomber detonated his explosives near one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines today, killing more than 40 people, officials said.

The blast near the Imam Hussein shrine in central Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, killed 41 and injured 16, said Adel al-Azawi, the deputy director of Karbala's health department. Karbala's governor, Aqeel al-Khazraji, said 44 were killed and 48 injured.

The bomber appeared to have set off the explosion only about 30 yards from the shrine in a busy pedestrian area surrounded by shops.

On Wednesday, more than 50 Iraqis were killed in clashes and bombings across the nation, including a suicide attack at a Shiite Muslim funeral in which at least 36 mourners died.

It was the most violent day since the Dec. 15 elections.

Sectarian tensions between Iraq's ascendant Shiite majority and embittered Sunni Arab minority overlaid much of Wednesday's bloodshed.

In the deadliest incident, a suicide bomber blew himself up amid a crowd of mourners attending the funeral of a 14-year-old Shiite boy killed in a Tuesday night assassination attempt on his uncle in Muqdadiyah, 60 miles northeast of Baghdad.

At least 36 people were killed and 43 injured, security officials said. The uncle, Ahmed al-Bakka, a physician and head of the local branch of the Dawa party, did not attend the funeral.

Politicians said the attack was an attempt to hinder a broad-based government or force the dominant Shiite alliance into further compromises. Shiites were said to be close to a deal on a coalition with Sunni Arabs and Kurds nearly three weeks after parliamentary elections.

Final results from the elections are expected within two weeks and are expected to show the United Iraqi Alliance with about 130 of Parliament's 275 seats. That figure is well short of the 184 needed to form a government.

In the capital Wednesday, gunmen assassinated Rahim Ali Sudani, a ranking official at the Oil Ministry, and his son as they drove through a western Baghdad neighborhood.

Meanwhile, traffic halted as police cordoned off and searched the central Baghdad neighborhood where the sister of Interior Minister Bayan Jabr was kidnapped the previous day.

The Al-Jazeera network said a previously unknown group called the al-Tha'r Battalion, Arabic for revenge, claimed responsibility for the abduction. It demanded the release of all women detainees, a stop to all raids by the Interior Ministry and decreased fuel prices.

As dusk settled, mortar fire and explosions sounded throughout the beleaguered capital, which has been hit by a gasoline crunch.

On a highway 25 miles north of the Baghdad, gunmen attacked a 60-truck convoy of tankers trying to bring gas to the capital from the main refinery in Beiji, firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns at the convoy being escorted by Iraqi security forces. At least three trucks were destroyed and 15 damaged, said Lt. Ali Hussein of the Iraqi highway patrol. U.S. forces sealed off the area and there was no word on casualties.

An Internet posting in the name of the Islamic Army in Iraq, a nationalist group, claimed responsibility for the ambush of the tanker convoy. The claim could not be independently verified.

Also Wednesday, a car bomb targeting a police station in the mostly Shiite northern district of Kadhimiya killed five, including three policemen, injured 12 people and set nearly 24 cars ablaze. A remotely detonated car bomb in the Dora neighborhood killed at least seven people. An hourlong gunfight erupted in the Ghazaliya neighborhood, leaving one dead and 17 injured.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.