Iraqi police say a car bombing in Baghdad has killed six people and
wounded at least nine others in the latest attack targeting Shi'ite
pilgrims.
Saturday's attack took place as hundreds of thousands
of people made their way to the city of Karbala for a festival marking
the birth of the Shi'ites' 12th and last Imam.
About 30 Shi'ite pilgrims have been killed and dozens more wounded in attacks since Thursday.
Northeast
of Baghdad, Kurdish officials have agreed to pull their troops from
areas of Diyala province, and to hand over authority to the central
Iraqi government.
A Kurdish minister, Jaffar Mustafa, says about
4,000 Kurdish troops, known as Peshmerga, will withdraw from
the region over the next 10 days.
Kurdish forces have patrolled
areas of ethnically mixed Diyala where many Kurds live, although the
province is not part of Iraq's northern Kurdish region.
A U.S.
military official says a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards
(Quds Force) and the Lebanese-based militant group Hezbollah are
training Iraqi assassination teams in Iran.
He said they plan to target Iraqi officials, as well as U.S. and Iraqi troops.
The
U.S. official, who requested anonymity, told Western news agencies the
Shi'ite "special groups" are being trained in the Iranian cities of
Qom, Tehran, Mashad and Ahvaz.
U.S. and Iraqi officials have
accused Iran of arming Shi'ite militias in Iraq. Iran denies
supporting the insurgents and says the U.S. military presence in Iraq
is to blame for violence in the country.
