By DPA
Baghdad : A car bomb blast in the Iraqi city of Kufa, around 170 km south of Baghdad, Tuesday killed 45 and wounded over 80, police said.
The suicide attacker blew up his explosives-laden car in a market district near a school in the predominantly Shia city.
Kufa is home to many loyalists of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Meanwhile earlier reports said gunmen shot dead a married Iraqi couple Monday at the elementary school in which they were both teachers in Diyala province.
News agency Voices of Iraq citing police sources reported that the pair were tied up and shot dead in front of pupils and colleagues in Khalis, north of Baghdad.
The killers escaped following the attack.
Also in Diyala province the Aswat al-Iraq news agency reported that a suicide attack on a police station killed three policemen and wounded 11 people.
In Baghdad, police have discovered some 30 bodies of murder victims.
Analysts say this and other developments point to a level of violence perpetrated by religious extremists and criminal gangs similar to that that had plagued the city prior to the implementation of a new security plan three months ago.