Karbala, Iraq: A suicide attack near a Shiite shrine killed at least 36 people today in the central Iraqi city of Karbala, a health official told AFP.

The attack came as US Vice President Dick Cheney visited Baghdad on a surprise trip and met several US and Iraqi leaders to discuss the recent improvement in security across the country.

At least 50 people were wounded in the blast which occurred near the revered Imam Hussein shrine, said Alaa Hamud Dadair, head of Karbala s health directorate.

Witnesses said the attacker was a female suicide bomber, Dadair said.

An AFP correspondent at the site said several ambulances and police vehicles were ferrying victims to hospital following the blast which occurred around 100 metres from the shrine, located in the centre of the city.

Soon after the attack Karbala police imposed an indefinite curfew in the central parts of the city.

Insurgents have targeted the Shiite shrine city on several occassions in the past five years.

On April 28 last year a suicide car bomb attack near the Imam Abbas shrine, a second revered shrine in Karbala, killed more than 70 people and wounded nearly 160.

Two weeks earlier, a similar bomb attack close to the Imam Hussein shrine killed 42 people and wounded scores more.

Karbala was also the site of bloody clashes between Shiite militants and police in August which left more than 50 people dead and hundreds injured.

Source : PTI