New blasts hit Baghdad as crisis worsens

Two new explosions rocked Baghdad early today as Iraq and its leaders struggled to recover from the carnage which yesterday claimed a reported 170 lives.

There was no immediate word of casaulties. But the blasts were a bleak reminder both in the Iraqi capital and to politicians in Washington and London that the terror threat was undiminished.

The multiple attacks in Baghdad and the holy city of Karbala yesterday marked the bloodiest day since the fall of Saddam Hussein. The latest casualty reports from Karbala today suggested the total number of dead in both cities could rise well above 200.

The political toll was also growing after the attacks forced the delay of a key milestone in the path towards the planned handover of power from America on 30 June. Iraq's top US administrator, Paul Bremer, said the signing of an interim constitution for the country, planned for tomorrow, will now be delayed until the end of the three-day mourning period following yesterday's explosions.

The devastating and apparently coordinated blasts came on the climactic day of the Shi'ite festival of Ashura. Tens of thousands of pilgrims from Iraq, Iran and other Shi'ite communities were massed around the golden-domed Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala and the Kazimiya shrine in Baghdad when a series of suicide bombers struck, using TNT, nails and ball bearings.

There were immediate fears that the attacks were aimed not just to destabilise the country's progress but to spark civil war between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims communities.

Leaders of both sects on Iraq's governing council, along with Kurdish representatives delivered an urgent joint plea to the country to remain united. But others blamed the Americans for failing to provide adequate security and others, bizzarely, accused America itself of being behind the explosions in an attempt to prolong its rule.

Intelligence and police action, however, prevented even worse carnage, including a disaster in the Britishcontrolled city of Basra.

Police there yesterday discovered two women strapped with explosives and another bomb was found near a Shi'ite mosque in the city.

In a related crisis, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was today travelling to Pakistan for talks with President Musharraf.

Yesterday Pakistan suffered a major terrorist attack when a gun and grenade assault on Shiite Muslim worshippers in Quetta, Baluchistan province, left at least 42 people dead.