Car bombs kill 15 in southern Iraq town

Basra (Iraq), June 8: Two car bombs killed 15 people and wounded 32 in the southern Iraqi town of Qurna today, hospital officials said.

Police said the blasts happened in quick succession. They said a bus exploded in a bus terminal in one attack while in the other a car blew up in a market.

Qurna is north of Basra, Iraq's second largest city. Car bombings are not as common in the Shi'ite-dominated southern region as they are elsewhere in Iraq.

Officials have accused Sunni Islamist al Qaeda of trying to stoke sectarian tensions by carrying out more attacks in key Shi'ite cities in recent months.

But Shi'ite factions are also embroiled in an increasingly bitter power struggle in southern Iraq, where most of the country's vast oil reserves lie.

Reuters>