30 dead in Iraq car bomb blast

A car bomb ripped through a market in southern Iraq’s Shiite heartland today as shoppers were buying meat and vegetables, killing about 30 people and wounding dozens more, officials said.

While the predominantly Shiite south has been plagued by fighting between rival militias, massive blasts such this are quite rare. The last such bombing was in November 2003 when a suicide truck bomber attacked the headquarters of Italian forces stationed there, killing more than 30 people.