A suicide car bomber drove at a mosque south of Baghdad today as Shi'ites were marking the start of the holy month of Ramadan and brought part of the structure crashing down, killing at least 25, police said.
The death toll could rise as a roof had caved in and people were being dug out of the rubble in the darkness, they said. At least 87 people were wounded in the blast at Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of the capital.
Shi'ite worshippers, celebrating the start of Ramadan a day after Sunni Muslims, gathered at dusk; the bomber then drove up to the main entrance of the mosque and detonated explosives.
Iraqi and US officials have voiced fears of an increase in violence ahead of the October 15 referendum on a new constitution, which Sunni Arab insurgents have vowed to wreck.
While Sunni Muslims, who make up the bulk of the world's Muslim believers, began the fasting month of Ramadan yesterday, Shi'ites, who are the majority community in Iraq, started to observe the rituals from today.
Hilla, the capital of Babil province, lies on one of Iraq's sectarian fault lines, with a large Shi'ite population living among Sunni Arabs, some of whom were encouraged to settle there under the rule of Saddam Hussein.
It has seen some of the bloodiest attacks on Shi'ites by Sunni Islamist insurgents; in February, 125 people were killed by a suicide car bomb in Hilla. Nearly 100 died in July in the nearby town of Mussayyib.