Baghdad: At least 16 people were killed across Iraq today, including soldiers and four pilgrims, a day after a suicide bomber killed 48 Shiite pilgrims in an attack which US officials blamed on Al-Qaeda.

In a brazen late afternoon attack, armed men ambushed a passing Iraqi army patrol in the town of Bohruz, in the restive Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, said army Brigadier General Ragib al-Omairi, the regional commander.

Seven soldiers and an army major were killed in the ambush, Omairi said.

Earlier today, a group of Shiite pilgrims heading to the central city of Karbala for the Arbaeen religious ceremony was hit by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

Four of them, including three women, were killed, while 15 others were wounded, security officials said.

Tens of thousands of Shiite faithful are vulnerable to attack a they walk to Karbala from across Iraq to attend the Arbaeen ceremony, which marks the 40th day after Ashura when the slaying of a revered seventh century imam is marked.

Arbaeen this year falls on Thursday.

The attack came a day after at least 48 people were killed when a suicide bomber detonated a vest filled with explosives at a rest stop used by Shiite pilgrims on their way to Karbala, hospital and security officials said.

At least 68 people were also wounded in the attack in the town of Iskandiriyah, just south of Baghdad, medics in the nearby town of Hilla and police said.

The injured were treated in three different area hospitals, said a Hilla hospital doctor who declined to give his name.

Source : PTI