Car bomb kills five Iraqis in city south of Baghdad

A car bomb exploded in a bustling vegetable market in the southern Iraqi city of Hilla today, killing at least five people and wounding 10, police said.

Police Capt. Muthana Khalid Ali said the vehicle was parked when it exploded at about 9.30am local time in Hilla, a Shiite-majority city about 60 miles south of Baghdad.

As Iraqi police and soldiers sealed off Al-Sharia vegetable market, emergency workers lifted wounded victims and bodies into ambulances from several streets covered with pools of blood and shattered vegetable stands.

In Iraq, the weekend is Friday and Saturday, and before heading to services at mosques at noon on a Friday, the Muslim day of worship, many Iraqis shop in their local markets.