68 killed in Iraq attacks, worst toll since Aug

It was the countrys bloodiest day since August 15, officials said.A suicide attack on Shiite pilgrims on the outskirts of the southern city of Nasiriyah killed 45 people and wounded 68 others, according to Hadi Badr al-Riyahi, head of the provincial health department in Dhi Qar, of which Nasiriyah is the capital.Five bomb attacks on Shiite neighbourhoods in north Baghdad killed at least 23 more people and wounded dozens of others, officials from the ministries of interior and defence said. In Baghdads northeastern impoverished Sadr City slum, a bomb planted on a parked motorcycle and another roadside explosive killed at least 10 people and wounded 37 others, police and hospital sources said.Police said they found and defused two other bombs.There was a group of day labourers gathered, waiting to be hired for work. Someone brought his small motorcycle and parked it nearby. A few minutes later it blew up, killed some people, wounded others and burned some cars, said a police officer at the scene, declining to be named.The second set of explosions, two car bombs, occurred in Baghdads northwestern Kadhimiya district and killed at least 15 people and wounded 32, police and hospital sources said.People started to flee from the explosions and others ran towards them (to look for relatives). The scene was like a play, with people crying and screaming and falling, Ahmed Maati, a policeman in Kadhimiya, told Reuters.Iraq - on the brink of civil war as recently as 2006-7, is still plagued by a deadly sectarian insurgency.Baghdads health statistics department put the final toll from the Kadhimiya blasts at 16 killed and 36 wounded and said 13 were killed and 32 others wounded in the Sadr City attacks.It is early to point our fingers to a particular side till we clarify some issues related to the investigations, said Baghdad operations centre spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi.We are in a battlefield with the terrorists ... and with the enemies of the political process, so we do not consider these (explosions) as a surprise for us or something strange. We are used to such (insurgent) operations.Moussawi put the toll from the Sadr City attack at 33 wounded and said 29 were wounded in the Kadhimiya bombings. He said he did not have figures for the number of people killed.