Car bomb in Iraq's Kufa kills 15 - police

KUFA, Iraq, July 18 (Reuters) A car bomb today hit a group of labourers near a Shi'ite mosque in the southern Iraqi city of Kufa, killing 15 and wounding 21, police said.

Hospital sources said they had received 17 bodies after the blast hit a crowded market 50-100 metres from the mosque in Kufa, 160 km south of Baghdad.

Policemen who arrived in the scene were pelted with rocks by angry supporters of a radical Shi'ite cleric who has many followers in Kufa, near the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf.

Police fired shots into the air to disperse the crowds, and a Reuters witness saw at least two wounded from the shooting.

''It is very chaotic now. Police are shooting into the air and the crowds are running,'' the witness said.

Shi'ite worshippers have been targeted in the past in apparently sectarian attacks by Sunni insurgents. Gatherings of labourers in crowded markets have also become a favourite target of insurgents, who Iraqi and US officials say are intent on sparking a civil war between Shi'ites and Sunnis.

Earlier this month, a suicide car bomber blasted two coach- loads of Iranian pilgrims in Kufa, killing 10 people and wounding 40.

REUTERS SB HS1111