World Bulletin / News Desk

Bombs in two majority Shi'ite Muslim cities in southern Iraq killed 28 people on Thursday, police and hospital sources said, in an attack aimed at spreading sectarian strife in the country.

Scores more were wounded in the blasts.

Two explosions near a restaurant in the city of Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad, killed 28 people, said Nabil Mohammed, the head of a hospital there.

"We started to stop civilian cars asking them to take the wounded to hospital since there were not enough ambulances to transfer them," said 39-year-old Ihsan al-Khalidi, a schoolteacher who was near the scene of the explosions.

Blood, shoes, body parts and wristwatches were scattered around the site of the blast and grieving women pounded their faces and chests, searching for relatives who might have been hurt.

"Shame on the officials who are just sitting in their offices while explosions hit the city every day," Khalidi said.

In the predominantly Shi'ite city of Kerbala, a car bomb near a bus terminal where pilgrims gather killed two people, a spokesman for the local health office said.

On Tuesday, car bombs targeting Shi'ites in mourning processions killed 14 people in Baghdad.

Shi'ites were not the only target on Thursday. In Falluja, a mainly Sunni city 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, three people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the midst of a group of soldiers who were gathering to get their pay from a state bank, police and health sources said.

A roadside bomb also went off near a checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul, killed one policeman and one civilian, police said.