20 killed in bombings in Iraq holy city during religious rite

At least 20 people were killed and 75 wounded on Friday when two car bombs blew up in Iraq's holy city of Kerbala as hundreds of thousands of Shi'ite pilgrims observed a major religious rite, hospital sources said.

The attack on the final and most important day of the Arbain festival was the third major strike this week against Shi'ite pilgrims amid a political furore over the banning of candidates, many of them Sunnis, from a March 7 election.