A female suicide bomber killed at least 27 people and wounded 47 in an attack today in the holy Shia city of Kerbala in southern Iraq, security and hospital officials said.
The attack took place in a cafe for day labourers in the centre of the city close to the Imam Hussein shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, police said.
"I was talking with a friend and eating bread a few metres away from the cafe and I suddenly heard a huge explosion and I was thrown to the floor. I saw smoke and bodies," said Mohammed Kadhem (39).
Emergency services came to take the dead and wounded to hospital, leaving pools of blood behind at the destroyed cafe, a Reuters witness said. Relatives of those caught in the blast wailed and screamed, he said.
Police and the head of the emergency room of al-Hussein hospital, the main hospital in Kerbala, said at least 27 people had been killed in the blast and 47 wounded.