Car bomb south of Baghdad kills 17, wounds 27

BAGHDAD, Feb 8 (Reuters) A car bomb exploded in a vegetable market in a mainly Shi'ite town south of Baghdad today, killing 17 people and wounding 27, police and hospital said.

Authorities imposed a curfew after the blast in Aziziya, 100 km south of Baghdad, and Iraqi police reinforcements from the nearby city of Kut were dispatched, police said.

The US military announced yesterday that a US-Iraqi security clampdown was underway in Baghdad, the epicentre of Iraq's soaring sectarian violence between majority Shi'ites and once dominant Sunni Arabs.

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