Blasts shake Iraqi city of Karbala, killing 2

Two bombs exploded an hour apart late Wednesday in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing at least two people and wounding 15 others, including women and children, police and hospital officials said.

The first blast occurred shortly after 11 p.m. in the center of Karbala near a police checkpoint about 800 yards from the shrine of Imam Hussein, one of the world's most sacred shrines for Shiite Muslims, the officials said. One person was killed and 12 were wounded.

The second bomb went off about an hour later outside the office of a government agency that cares for Shiite religious sites near another shrine, for Imam Abbas. The blast killed one person, wounded three and damaged nearby houses, police said.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information to media.

Both shrines draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from across the Shiite world and are in the heavily guarded center of Karbala, about 50 miles south of Baghdad. Blasts in the shrine area are uncommon because of the stringent security there.

No group claimed responsibility for the blasts, and police would not speculate on who might be responsible.

Karbala had been the scene of bitter rivalry between followers of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and mainstream Shiite parties that work closely with the United States.

That rivalry erupted into violence during a religious festival in August 2007 that claimed more than 50 lives.

Soon afterward al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army militia to observe a unilateral cease-fire, in large part because of public outrage over its alleged role in the Karbala fighting.

His move was partly responsible for the sharp decline in sectarian violence in Iraq.