Bomb kills four in Iraq Shiite holy town of Kufa

6 minutes ago



KUFA, Iraq (AFP) - A bomb believed hidden in a bag killed four people, including two children, in a busy market place in the Iraqi Shiite holy town of Kufa, a medic and police official said Saturday.


Khalid al-Yassiri from the health department of Najaf, the main city close to Kufa, said four people died in the blast and seven others were wounded. "Two of the dead are children," Yassiri said.

Najaf police chief Abdel Karim Mustafa said the bomb went off in the middle of a Kufa market.

"We suspect two people who were wounded to be behind the explosion. They will be interrogated," he said.

A witness told AFP that a man placed a bag near a vendor, a young boy, and told him he would return soon to pick up the bag.

"But minutes later the bag exploded," the witness said, on condition of anonymity.

Kufa is a bastion of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.