35 dead in Iraqi car bomb blast

Iraqi officials have raised the casualty toll in a car bombing in a mainly Shiite area of southern Iraq to as many as 35 killed and 45 wounded.

Today’s blast ripped through a market district in the town of Bathaa, near Nasiriyah.

It is the latest in a series of high-profile explosions that have raised concerns about a resurgence of violence as the US military faces a June 30 deadline to withdraw from urban areas in Iraq.

Officials have given conflicting death tolls as is common in the chaotic aftermath of bombings in Iraq.

A hospital spokesman in Nasiriyah, Kadhim al-Obeidi, says 35 were killed and 45 wounded.

An Interior Ministry official put the death toll at 28.