Four Shia pilgrims have been killed in Baghdad, a day after 63 people were killed by a suicide bomber.
The four pilgrims, three of them women, were killed in a roadside attack in the Al-Zafaraniyah neighbourhood of south Baghdad as they headed to Karbala. 15 other pilgrims were wounded in the blast.
US officials said the attack was carried out by Al-Qaeda militants.
Tens of thousands of Shia faithful are vulnerable to attack as they walk to the shrine city of Karbala to attend the Arbaeen religious ceremony which falls on 28 February.
Meanwhile the death toll from yesterday's suicide bomb attack on Iraqi pilgrims has risen to 63.
Elsewhere a suicide bomber in a wheelchair killed a top policeman and wounded four others in an attack on the police operations centre in the Iraqi city of Samarra.
The bomber entered the operations centre in Samarra and asked to speak to the assistant police chief.
The bomber detonated explosives hidden in the wheelchair.
