Holy City death toll rises
A suicide car bomber flattened a restaurant in a busy market in the Shiite holy city of Kufa this morning, killing at least 16 people and wounding 70 in an attack sure to further enflame tensions between Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite populations.
In response, local authorities closed the entrances to Kufa and its sister holy city of Najaf – strongholds of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia – and imposed a vehicle ban around the revered shrines and mosques in the two towns, said Ahmed Duaible, a local government spokesman.
