A car bomb shattered the relative peace of the southern Iraqi city of Basra after dark today, killing 12 people and wounding 22 in a district packed with restaurants and a market, hospital sources said.
A Reuters journalist saw at least five bodies at a local hospital.
The late evening blast was a shock for the mainly Shia southern city, which has been relatively calm compared to regions further north that are ravaged by an insurgency against the Shi'ite-led government by minority Sunni Arabs.
"It appears to have been a large vehicle bomb explosion in the centre of Basra," said a spokesman for the British armed forces that patrol the city.
Though there have been tensions among rival Shia militias and between armed groups and British-led occupying troops, major attacks on civilians of the sort associated with Sunni Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda have been relatively rare.
On April 21 last year suicide bombers killed 73 people, including 17 children, in co-ordinated blasts at three police stations in Basra and at the police academy in nearby Zubeir.