Five dead in car bomb blast

A suicide car bomb exploded near a revered shrine in one of Iraq’s holiest Shiite cities today, killing five people and wounding 36, police said.

The blast happened outside the Al-Abbas shrine in Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, said Rahman Meshawi, the city’s police spokesman, who provided the casualty totals.

Karbala is considered Iraq’s second holiest Shiite city after Najaf, which is 45 miles to the southeast.

Shiites make pilgrimages to both locations and bury their dead in large cemeteries there.