By DPA
Baghdad : Six people were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of involvement in a suicide bombing in Iraq’s holy city of Karbala while six children were killed in a mortar attack on their home in Baghdad.
A female suicide bomber blew herself up Monday evening near a Shia holy shrine in Karbala, killing at least 49 people and injuring 70, some of them Iranian worshippers, police and witnesses said.
The attack, the deadliest in the city in nearly a year, was condemned by the office of radical Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, situated only 30 metres away from the scene of the blast, the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported.
The office accused Sunni extremists of targeting the “unity of Muslims”.
The blast occurred near the shrine of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, a fortified, car-free area.
In another incident of violence, six children were killed Monday evening when a mortar shell exploded in the Sumar district of northeastern Baghdad, a security source told VOI.
Two US soldiers were also killed Monday by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad.
The fatalities brought the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion to 3,990.