Four Iranian among five killed in Iraq bomb

A car bomb killed four Iranian Shia pilgrims and an Iraqi citizen travelling on a bus north-east of Baghdad on Monday with women among nine others wounded, a police commander said. The early afternoon attack took place in Al-Muqdadiyah, 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Baquba, capital of Diyala province, an al Qaeda hotspot and haven of Sunni rebels, said Major Mohammed al-Karkhi of Baquba police.
The pilgrims were headed for the Shia shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala, south of the capital. Although violence has dropped from the peak of the early years after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, Diyala, an ethnically and religiously mixed province, is still the target of sporadic attacks. Violence nation-wide has killed well over 100 people so far this month, fuelling security fears as Washington pulls out thousands of troops, although US officers insist Iraqi security forces are up to the task of replacing them.