Car Bomb Kills 12 in Shiite Area of Baghdad, another Targets Iran Pilgrims

A car bomb near a market in a Shiite-majority area of Baghdad killed 12 people and wounded at least 20 on Monday, a police officer and a medical official said.

The bombing in the Shaab area of north Baghdad brings the two-day death toll from violence in Iraq to 63.

The car bombing came minutes after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki vowed to overhaul the country's security strategy, amid a wave of violence that has killed 340 people so far in May.

Later on Monday, another car bomb exploded near a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims north of Baghdad, killing eight people, police and a local official said.

The bombing also wounded at least 15 people, the officials said.

The pilgrims were on their way to a Shiite shrine in Samarra, which was bombed in February 2006, unleashing a wave of sectarian bloodletting in which tens of thousands of people died.

Violence in Iraq has fallen from its peak in 2006 and 2007 but attacks are still common, with more than 200 people killed in each of the first five months of this year.