A powerful car bomb explosion in the holy Iraqi city of Karbala early on Sunday killed at least 21 people and injured 52, said a police official.
Updated at 5.30 pm
BAGHDAD: Car bombs killed 30 people in Iraq on Sunday and wounded more than 70 in one of the bloodiest spasms of violence of recent weeks.
The southern city of Basra was largely calm as British military engineers examined the wreck of a helicopter whose apparent shooting-down was followed by clashes between troops and youths chanting triumphal Shi'ite militia slogans.
At least 21 people were killed and 52 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated a car on a crowded street in the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala, south of Baghdad, police and doctors said.
The effect was devastating.
Around the same time, two cars exploded in the capital.
A suicide car bomber hit an Iraqi army patrol in the rebellious, mainly Sunni northern district of Aadhamiya, killing eight people and wounding 15.
Soldiers and civilians were among the casualties.
Iraqi and US forces had conducted a sweep for Sunni guerrillas in Aadhamiya on Saturday, the US military said.
A second car bomb exploded at a busy intersection close to the offices of a government-funded newspaper in northern Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding five.
In Kerbala, the police chief told a news conference only two people had died in the bombing. But police and hospital officials who declined to be named stood by their casualty figures and said rescue work was continuing four hours later.
The blast decimated crowds going about their business at the start of the working week, close to a partially built Shi'ite mosque and 500 metres from the main bus station.
A dozen other vehicles burned out as a result of the explosion.
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