BAGHDAD: A car bomb in Karbala killed 10 civilians and wounded 26 others on Tuesday, officials said.

The bomb went off in a commercial area in the city, which is some 90 kilometres south of Baghdad, a police official said.

“A car bomb was detonated at an intersection in Al-Mowadhafeen neighbourhood, around three kilometres from the city centre,” the Joint Operations Command said in a statement.

The explosion was claimed by the militant Islamic State (IS) group, which has carried out most such attacks in Iraq recently.

In a statement posted on social media, IS said it was a suicide attack carried out by a man it named as Abu Malik al-Iraqi.

Bombings in Karbala are rare but the city, which is home to the mausoleums of revered imams Hussein and Abbas, borders Anbar province where Iraqi forces are currently battling IS.

Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, has seen a string of near-daily attacks in recent weeks, but mainly Shia southern Iraq has largely been spared from the violence.

Separate bombings in and around Baghdad killed another seven civilians on Tuesday, police said.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2016