BAGHDAD, July 6 (UPI) -- At least 12 people were killed and 51 others injured Thursday when a car bomb outside a Shiite mosque exploded in the southern Iraq city of Kufa.
Police said most of the victims were Iranian Shiite pilgrims who had been boarding buses outside the Maytham al-Tammar mosque, CNN reported. Children were among the victims of the blast, which completely gutted two buses, police said.
The attack happened about 7:15 a.m. some 100 miles south of Baghdad, the BBC said.
In Tehran, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi denounced the attack and called on the Iraqi government to fulfill its responsibility of safeguarding Iranian pilgrims in the country, the IRNA news agency reported.
Kufa is one of four Shiite holy places, along with Samara, Karbala and Najaf. The Samara shrine was bombed in February, setting off sectarian violence between majority Shiites and Sunni Muslims.
