55 killed in car bomb near Shiite shrine in Iraq

BAGHDAD – A parked car exploded Saturday near one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines in the city of Karbala as people were headed to the area for evening prayers, killing 55 people and wounding dozens, officials said.\nThe explosion took place in a crowded commercial area near the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, officials said. At least 55 people were killed and 70 wounded, said Salim Kazim, the head of the Karbala health department.\nA car bomb exploded in the same area on April 14, killing 47 and wounding 224.\nSaturday’s explosion occurred a few hundred meters from the Imam Abbas shrine, setting several cars on fire and causing chaos. The explosion took place as the streets were filled with people heading for evening prayers at the Abbas shrine and the adjacent Imam Hussein shrine, two of Iraq’s holiest Shiite sites.\nAn angry crowd gathered after the explosion, many of them searching frantically for missing relatives. Some threw stones at the police and at the office of the provincial governor, accusing them of failing to protect the people.\nPolice fired weapons in the air to disperse the crowds.\nIraqi television showed a plume of black smoke rising from the street as ambulances rushed to retrieve the wounded. One man carried the charred body of a small girl as he ran.\nQassim Hassan, 34, who was about 40 yards away from the explosion, said his brother and cousin were missing.\n“I saw dozens of people falling down on the ground and the same happened to me,” he said from his hospital bed. “I demand a trial for the people in charge of the security in Karbala. They failed to prevent the breaches. I regret that I voted for those traitors who only care about their posts, not the people who voted for them.”\nAli Mohammed, 31, who sells prayer beads, said he heard the blast and felt himself hurled into the air.\n“The next thing I knew I opened my eyes in the hospital with my legs and chest burned,” he said. “This is a disaster. What is the guilt of the children and women killed today by this terrorist attack?”\nOn Friday, a suicide truck bomber attacked the home of a city police chief in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, killing nine Iraqi security forces and six civilians, the U.S. military said Saturday. Police chief Hamid Ibrahim al-Numrawi and his family escaped injury after Iraqi forces opened fire on the truck before it reached the concrete barrier outside the home in Hit, 85 miles west of Baghdad.\n– Associated Press writer Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm, Sweden, contributed to this report.