Baghdad, Iraq -- A suicide car bomb targeting Iranian pilgrims struck near a Shiite shrine in the holy city of Kufa on Thursday, killing at least 10 people and wounding 40, authorities said.
The bomb exploded about 7:15 a.m. near the shrine of Maitham al-Tamar and yards from the Kufa mosque. Police initially said 12 people were killed, but Iraq's council of minister later said 10 died. Most of the victims were Iranian pilgrims, the council said.
Police at the scene said the suicide attacker was driving a minivan behind two big buses carrying Iranian pilgrims.
The explosion apparently occurred as the pilgrims were getting off the bus near the shrine of Maitham al-Tamar, not far from the Kufa mosque, police said. The buses were destroyed and a wall of the shrine was damaged.
Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion immediately fell on Sunni extremists amid rising sectarian tensions in the country.
"We denounce this act targeting innocent people and pilgrims," said Sahib al-Amiri, an aide to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "It was meant to shake the stability in Najaf."
Kufa and its twin city Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, are in a relatively peaceful area of Iraq, tightly controlled by police and Shiite guards.
On April 6, a car bomb exploded in Najaf, killing at least 10 people some 300 yards from the Imam Ali shrine and on a street that leads to the city's massive cemetery _ used by Shiites from throughout the country who come to the city to bury their dead.
Pilgrims traveling to holy sites in the area also have been targeted. Other past attacks included a mortar barrage hit the Kufa mosque in August 2004, killing 27 people and wounding 63, and a car bomb in Najaf in August 2003 that killed more than 85 people, including Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim.
Attacks on houses of worship have stoked tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, especially after the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, an act that triggered reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques and clerics.
The Kufa mosque holds the shrine of Muslim Bin Aqeel, a follower of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. It also was the site of fierce clashes between al-Sadr's followers and U.S. troops in 2004.
Najaf deputy Gov. Abdul-Hussein Attan visited the scene of the explosion.
"This suicide attack was targeting the stability and reconstruction of Najaf. This attack will not stop the reconstruction nor the coming of pilgrims," he said.
Millions of Shiite Muslim pilgrims from Iran and elsewhere take dangerous bus journeys to travel to the shrines in the area. Officials have begun expanding and modernizing the now-shuttered Imam Ali Airport in Najaf in an attempt to provide safer transportation.