IRAQ KILLINGS: Death Toll Rise to 43 as Bombings Continues!

Attacks including a suicide bombing that ripped through a religious procession, killed 43 people in Iraq Thursday despite massive security deployed for one of the holiest days of their faith.

The bloodshed came as a flood of worshippers, including tens of thousands of foreign pilgrims, thronged the central shrine city of Karbala for the climax of Ashura.

The suicide bomber, who was disguised in a police uniform, struck in a Shiite-majority area of confessionally mixed Diyala province, north of Baghdad, killing 32 people and wounding 80, security and medical officials said.

It was the third attack of the day. Earlier, coordinated blasts in the town of Hafriyah, south of the capital, killed nine people, while twin bombings in the northern oil city of Kirkuk wounded five.

A bombing also targeted an army patrol in a predominantly Sunni town north of Baghdad, killing two soldiers.