More from bombing scene, hospital and Najaf roadblocks
(9 Dec 2006) Karbala 1. Wide of scene where blast occurred 2. Onlookers at blast scene 3. Damaged shop sign on ground 4. Damaged signs 5. Children picking up rubble 6. Various of onlookers 7. SOUNDBITE: (Arabic) Eyewitness, no name given: ''An explosion took place in Abbas Street near a pastry shop. I was sitting at a pastry shop when the blast took place.'' 8. Various of damaged shops 9. Man holding piece of rubble 10. Motorbike on its side 11. Car ready to be towed away 12. Broken glass on ground 13. Damaged car being towed away from the scene 14. Various of people clearing up 15. Wide of blast scene 16. Sign: (Arabic): ''al-Hussein Hospital'' 17. Wide of hospital 18. Various of police and mourners 19. Various of mourners carrying coffins 20. Various of injured lying on beds 21. Sign: (Arabic) ''mortuary'' 22. Bloodstain on stretcher Najaf 23. Holy Shrine of Imam Ali, cousin of Prophet Mohammed 24. Various of street scenes in Najaf 25. Various of police searching cars 26. Police blocking roads leading to the holy shrine of Imam Ali STORYLINE: A suicide car bomb exploded near a revered shrine in one of Iraq's holiest Shiite cities on Saturday, killing five people and wounding 36, police said. ''An explosion took place in Abbas Street near a pastry shop. I was sitting at a pastry shop when the blast took place,'' said an unnamed eyewitness at the scene. The blast occurred at about 10:30 am (07:30 GMT) outside the Al-Abbas shrine in Karbala, 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Baghdad, a police spokesman said. Karbala is considered Iraq's second holiest Shiite city after Najaf, which is 70 kilometres (45 miles) to the southeast. Shiites make pilgrimages to both locations and bury their dead in large cemeteries there. The injured were taken to the al-Hussein Hospital. AP Television footage also showed mourners taking away coffins of their relatives to be buried. Meanwhile, local authorities in Najaf took tough security measures in the wake of the Karbala blast for fear of further attacks targeting Shiite holy shrines. Imam Ali, cousin of Prophet Mohammed, is buried in Najaf. Iraqi security troops searched cars and blocked roads in the area surrounding the holy shrine of Imam Ali. During the Iraq war, a main goal of Sunni Arab insurgent groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq has been to spark sectarian violence by attacking sites considered holy by the country's Shiite majority. On Feb. 23, at least 136 Iraqis were killed in sectarian violence a day after an explosion destroyed the dome of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, 95 kilometres (60 miles) north of Baghdad. On March 2, 2004, coordinated suicide bombings, mortar attacks and planted explosives struck Shiite shrines in Karbala and Baghdad, killing at least 181 Iraqis and wounding 573. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: / ap_archive Facebook: / aparchives Instagram: / apnews You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...
