Baghdad:
At least nine people were killed and 31 wounded on Saturday when a car bomb exploded in Baghdad where thousands of Shi'ite pilgrims had gathered to mark a major religious festival, police said.
The bomb was packed in a taxi abandoned on a route used by pilgrims visiting a Baghdad shrine to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Shi'ite imam Moussa al-Kadhim, a great-grandson of Prophet Mohammad, authorities said.
It was the third attack targeting Shi'ite pilgrims this week and follows a wave of bombings on Wednesday in Baghdad and across Iraq that killed 70 people in the worst single day of violence since US troops left the country in December.
Recent attacks on Shi'ite targets are reviving fears Iraq risks slipping back into broad sectarian violence, especially with Shi'ite, Sunni and ethnic Kurdish parties that make up its fragile government feuding over how they share power.
© Thomson Reuters 2012