Suicide Car Bomber Kills Dozens Near Shia Shrine

A suicide car bomber may have killed up to 50 people at a bus station near the Shia shrine in Kerbala yesterday at the end of a week that saw the Iraqi parliament bombed and one of Baghdad's bridges destroyed.

The attack in Kerbala occurred 200 yards from the Imam Hussein shrine, where the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed is buried: it is one of the most important Shia sites.

Khalid al-Daami, Kerbala's security chief, said: 'The explosion was huge. It took place in a crowded area, and the number of casualties will increase.'

It was a day of violence across the country. In Baghdad, police said a suicide car bomber detonated his device near a checkpoint at the southern Jadriyah bridge, killing 10 people.

Meanwhile in Basra, it was revealed that, on Friday, British troops had killed eight gunmen laying landmines in an area where four British soldiers and their translator had been killed by a roadside bomb earlier this month.

On Thursday, a truck bomb killed seven people on the Sarafiya bridge in northern Baghdad, destroying most of the steel structure in an attack that parliament's Speaker, Mahmoud Mashhadani, called a conspiracy to split the city - a dozen bridges cross the Tigris in Baghdad.

Yesterday's violence came a day after leaders from across Iraq's sectarian divide gathered at a special session of parliament to condemn the suicide bombing that tore through the building on Thursday. An al-Qaeda-backed group has claimed responsibility.

A two-month-old crackdown in Baghdad, which is seen as a last-ditch attempt to halt Iraq's slide into civil war, has succeeded in reducing the number of death squad murders, but car and suicide bombers are much harder to stop.

The latest violence comes as the UN prepares to risk a diplomatic row with Britain by accusing it of failing to protect asylum seekers fleeing Iraq. The UN will use a conference in Geneva to draw attention to what it claims is the West's failure to deal with Iraq's humanitarian crisis.

Statistics to be presented at the conference will show the UK has almost the lowest rate for recognising Iraqi asylum claims in the developed world. Only 12 per cent of Iraqi asylum claims are approved by Britain, compared with a 91 per cent approval rate in Sweden. In contrast, about half of Iraqi asylum claims were recognised by the UK at the turn of the millennium.

The figures have angered UN officials, coming at a time when violence in Iraq has prompted an exodus of refugees. 'Given the seriousness of the situation in Iraq, one would certainly expect a much higher recognition rate for refugees from that country,' said Pirkko Kourula, the UN's European director on refugees.

'We all know what is happening in Iraq today. If people cannot find protection in Iraq, then we must ensure that they find it when they escape.'