At least one person was killed and ten others wounded when a car bomb exploded near a bus stop south of the capital Baghdad.
The bomb targeted an area used mainly by Shi'ite pilgrims traveling to the holy city of Kerbala to attend the Arbain.
(SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) UNIDENTIFIED EYE WITNESS, SAYING:
"It is a road used by pilgrims, thanks God the car bomb was inside the bus stop and not on the road. If it had been left on the road, it would have hurt a lot of people."
A political crisis since the U.S. withdrawal has raised fears among many Iraqis of a return to the sectarian slaughter in which tens of thousands were killed in 2006-07.
Attacks targeting Shi'ites have killed scores of people since the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki issued an arrest warrant for a Sunni vice president and the main Sunni backed party boycotted parliament.
Many of the recent suicide and car bomb attacks against pilgrims bore the signature of methods used by the Iraq branch of al Qaeda.
Deborah Lutterbeck, Reuters.