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53 killed in Iraq blast

BAGHDAD: A suicide car bomber detonated explosives on Tuesday as labourers gathered across the street from a major Shia shrine in southern Iraq, killing at least 53 persons and wounding 105, officials and witnesses said.

In Baghdad, a top Iraqi official announced that a Jordanian responsible for killing two U.S. soldiers last month was fatally wounded in a clash with security forces.

National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie identified the Jordanian as Diyar Ismail Mahmoud, or Abu al-Afghani, but did not say when he died.

The suicide attacker drove a minivan to where the Shia labourers gather daily to look for work in Kufa, 160 km south of Baghdad.

He offered them jobs, loaded the minivan with volunteers and then detonated the vehicle, Najaf Gov. Asaad Abu Kalal said.

Maliki condemns attack

The blast occurred near Kufa's gold-domed mosque, police Capt. Nafie Mohammed said.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki condemned the attack and promised to track down and punish those who planned it.

Kufa is a stronghold of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose movement controls the mosque. It appeared the blast was aimed at undermining his position in Iraq's sectarian struggle, much of which has been blamed on Mr. Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.

The U.S. command announced that three American soldiers were killed in separate attacks on Monday — two in the Baghdad area and one in Anbar province west of the capital.

At least 2,554 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. — AP

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