Suicide car bomber strikes pilgrims at Shiite shrine

Baghdad, Iraq ? A suicide car bomber attacked Iranian pilgrims Thursday as they got off tour buses at a Shiite Muslim shrine south of Baghdad, killing 12 people and wounding 39.

The bomber struck about 7:15 a.m. in Kufa, a Shiite holy city 100 miles south of Baghdad, detonating a minivan filled with explosives behind two buses unloading pilgrims, police said.

Eight of the dead and 22 of the injured were Iranians, said Dr. Munthir al-Athari of the provincial health department. Three of the dead Iranians were women, he said.

At least 19 other people were killed Thursday across Iraq, including 11 men whose bullet-riddled bodies were found in several locations across Baghdad, police said. Several showed signs of torture.

No group claimed responsibility for the Kufa blast, but suspicion fell on Sunni religious extremists and supporters of Saddam Hussein. Many Sunnis fear the rise of Iraq’s Shiite majority will lead to greater influence by Shiite-dominated Iran, with which Iraq fought a bloody war in 1980-88.

“The purpose is clear – to stop pilgrimage. I suspect that the criminal Baathists are behind this act,” the local provincial governor, Asaad Abu Kallal, said, referring to members of Saddam’s ousted, Sunni-dominated party.

U.S. deaths

As of Thursday, at least 2,542 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, denounced the attack as a “barbaric terrorist act” and urged the Iraqi government to find those responsible. He blamed U.S.-led coalition forces, saying they failed to maintain security in Iraq, Iranian television reported.

U.S. officials have offered to discuss the situation in Iraq with Iranian authorities, but Tehran has refused.

Last month, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey Jr., said Iran had become the main source of materials to make makeshift roadside bombs – an allegation the Iranians deny.

The Kufa attack came a day after the U.S. military predicted an increase in vehicle bombings now that Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, has succeeded the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as head of al-Qaida in Iraq.