At least 112 Shia pilgrims have been killed in a series of attacks across Iraq.
In the worst incident, 77 people were killed and 237 wounded when two suicide bombers strapped with explosives walked into a roadside tent near the city of Hilla, south of Baghdad.
The tent was offering food, drink and a resting area to pilgrims that had paused on their way to Kerbala.
Shia pilgrims from across Iraq are converging on the city of Kerbala for the Arbaeen religious commemoration on Friday but Sunni militants have targeted the pilgrims in a string of attacks.
The violence further increases sectarian tensions between majority Shia and Sunni Arabs amid frequent bombings and so called death squad killings.
The suicide blasts come just over a year since the bombing of the Shia shrine in the city of Samarra. That attack, blamed on al-Qaeda, unleashed a wave of sectarian violence which authorities have struggled unsuccessfully to stem.
Meanwhile, attacks were also launched against Shia pilgrims in and around Baghdad, with a car bomb in the southern Baghdad district of Doura killing 12 people.
US soldiers killed in Baghdad blasts
Nine US soldiers were killed in two bomb blasts north of Baghdad yesterday.
Six died when their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in Salaheddin province.
And a short time later three more troops were killed in a similar attack in Diyala, also north of Baghdad.
The violence comes as US and Iraqi troops are stepping up a three-week old security crackdown in Baghdad aimed at stemming sectarian bloodshed.
