The number of Shiite pilgrims killed when a bomb exploded in the southern Iraqi city of Karbala on Thursday climbed to 10, Iraqi medics told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Friday.
Another 56 people were injured in the blast, many of them critically, hospital workers said.
"We carried several wounded and dead people, including the remains of a woman's head," an eyewitness told Baghdad's Voices of Iraq news agency Friday.
The attack targetted pilgrims commemorating the death of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson, Ali, at the Battle of Karbala in the year 680.
Millions of Shiites walk to his shrine in Karbala, 130 kilometres south of Baghdad, over the course of the "Arbaine," or 40 days of mourning, every year, in a ritual that will reach its conclusion on Monday.
Ali's death prevented him from assuming control of the rapidly expanding empire that Shiite Muslims believe was his due, and marked a decisive split between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Providing security for the event has consistently proved a difficult challenge for Iraqi and international forces.
In other news, the Britain's defence ministry Friday confirmed that a British soldier died of wounds sustained in an exchange of fire on a British military base the day before in the southern city of Basra, 445 kilometres south of Baghdad. He was the first British soldier killed in Iraq in 2009.