KARBALA, March 17: A suicide attack in Karbala near the shrine of Hazrat Imam Hussein killed 41 people on Monday.

The attack came as US Vice President Dick Cheney visited Baghdad on a surprise trip and met several US and Iraqi leaders to discuss the recent improvement in security across the country.

Around 50 people were wounded in the blast, which occurred near the shrine of Hazrat Imam Hussein, said Alaa Hamud Dadair, head of Karbala’s health directorate.

Witnesses said the attacker was a female suicide bomber.

Correspondent at the site said several ambulances and police vehicles were ferrying victims to hospital following the blast, which occurred around 100 metres from the shrine, located in the centre of the city. Soon after the attack, Karbala police imposed an indefinite curfew in the central parts of the city.

Militants have targeted Karbala on several occassions in the past five years. On April 28 last year a suicide car bomb attack near the shrine of Hazrat Abbas, a second revered shrine in Karbala, killed more than 70 people and wounded nearly 160.

Two weeks earlier, a similar bomb attack close to the Imam Hussein shrine killed 42 people and wounded scores more.

Iraq has been rocked by a series of suicide bomb attacks in recent months, including by females.

The US military says explosive vest has become the weapon of choice for Al Qaeda in Iraq, with most jihadists nowadays wearing the suicide apparel.

“Late in 2007 there were about eight or 10 (suicide bombings) a month; in the month of February, there were 18. There is an increase,” US military spokesman Rear Admiral Gregory Smith told a news conference on Sunday.—AFP