At least 25 people have been killed in an explosion near a Shi'ite mosque in northern Iraq.
A further 150 people were hurt when the truck bomb flattened around 20 homes in the area, according to Iraqi police and local sources.
The blast struck a town south of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qader said the explosion happened just after noon prayers.
It comes as US troops begin their withdrawal from urban areas in the country ahead of a June 30 deadline.
Iraqi officials warned they expect insurgents to stage attacks to try to undermine confidence in the government's ability to take over its own security.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has insisted the US troops will withdraw from the cities on schedule, saying it will be a "big victory" for the Iraqi people.
Iraqi officials say a parked car bomb has exploded in a Shiite area in the country’s south.
Police and hospital officials say there appear to be dozens of casualties but they don’t have specific numbers yet.
The officials say Wednesday’s blast was targeting a market district in the town of Bathaa.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information to media.
The town is near Nasiriyah, which is located about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad
The area been the site of past violence — mainly fierce internal fighting between Shiite militia factions before a cease-fire took hold.
A mother has gone on trial acused of killing two new-born babies she kept secret from her husband then hiding their bodies in a freezer.
In a case that has gripped France, Veronique Courjault faces a life sentence if found guilty of murder.
Judges in Tours will have to decide if she knew what she was doing or was in denial over her pregnancies. She has already spent two and a half years on remand in prison and her family insist she is no danger to society.
In 2006 Courjault and her husband Jean-Louis were living in Seoul, South Korea, where he was working as an engineer and spent long periods away from home.
His wife and their two sons, aged nine and 11, had gone to France for a summer trip while Jean-Louis stayed behind.
He bought fish and went to put it in a downstairs freezer where he then discovered the bodies.
Horrified, he alerted the police and was later allowed to fly to France to be with his wife.
They held a press conference where they said they were baffled at how the babies had got there.
But weeks later DNA tests proved they were the parents and they were arrested.
Courjault confessed to police to hiding two pregnancies from her husband in 2002 and 2003, giving birth alone in the bathroom before strangling the babies and putting the bodies in the freezer.
She also confessed to killing another newborn when the couple still lived in France in 1999 and disposing of the body in the family fireplace.
Courjault told psychologists she had not felt the babies move in her womb during pregnancy.
"For me, it was never children, it was a part of me, a prolongation of myself that I killed," she said.
Jean-Louis Courjault was cleared of any involvement in a trial earlier this year.
He later said: "Society has to admit that not all pregnancies are happy. My wife certainly has a problem of a psychological order."
In a case that has gripped France, Veronique Courjault faces a life sentence if found guilty of murder.
Judges in Tours will have to decide if she knew what she was doing or was in denial over her pregnancies.
She has already spent two and a half years on remand in prison and her family insist she is no danger to society.
In 2006 Courjault and her husband Jean-Louis were living in Seoul, South Korea, where he was working as an engineer and spent long periods away from home. His wife and their two sons, aged nine and 11, had gone to France for a summer trip while Jean-Louis stayed behind.
He bought fish and went to put it in a downstairs freezer where he then discovered the bodies. Horrified, he alerted the police and was later allowed to fly to France to be with his wife.
They held a press conference where they said they were baffled at how the babies had got there. But weeks later DNA tests proved they were the parents and they were arrested.
Courjault confessed to police to hiding two pregnancies from her husband in 2002 and 2003, giving birth alone in the bathroom before strangling the babies and putting the bodies in the freezer.
She also confessed to killing another newborn when the couple still lived in France in 1999 and disposing of the body in the family fireplace.
Courjault told psychologists she had not felt the babies move in her womb during pregnancy. "For me, it was never children, it was a part of me, a prolongation of myself that I killed," she said.
Jean-Louis Courjault was cleared of any involvement in a trial earlier this year. He later said: "Society has to admit that not all pregnancies are happy. My wife certainly has a problem of a psychological order."
A bomb exploded outside a luxury hotel in a major city in northwest Pakistan Tuesday, killing at least five people, according to a government official.
The blast went off near the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar.
Gunmen stormed the hotel just Tuesday night before "a big bomb went off," said police official Liaqat Ali.
At least five people were killed and 25 were wounded, said Sahibzada Anis, a top government official in Peshawar.
Pakistan's Express Television also reported at least five deaths, but said 35 people were injured.
Police official Liaqat Ali said gunmen stormed into the Pearl Continental Hotel in the north-western city just before "a big bomb went off" and sparked a major fire.
Officials are trying to establish whether a device had been planted or it was a suicide attack.
Pakistani television channels quoted witnesses as saying it was a gun and bomb attack.PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Officials says a huge bomb has exploded at a luxury hotel in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least five people and wounding 25 others.
Police official Liaqat Ali says gunmen stormed into the Pearl Continental Hotel in the northwestern city on Tuesday night just before “a big bomb went off.”
Sahibzada Anis, a top government official in Peshawar, says at least five people were killed and 25 wounded.
The blast is the latest in a string of attacks in Pakistani cities in recent weeks that officials say are revenge for a military offensive against Taliban militants in the Swat Valley.
An explosion has killed five people and injured at least 25 at a luxury hotel in the north-west Pakistani city of Peshawar, officials say.
Police named the hotel as the five-star Pearl Continental, and an unconfirmed report suggests that foreign guests are among those hurt.
Peshawar is capital of Pakistan's troubled North West Frontier Province.
A series of bombs have hit cities including Peshawar since a government crackdown on Taliban militants.
One report said the hotel had been subjected to a gun and bomb attack.
Pearl Continental's website describes its hotel in Peshawar as "overlooking the famous Peshawar golf course and the historic Bala Hisar Fort".
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TV reports said the hotel had been subjected to a gun and bomb attack.
A government investigator, Sahibzada Anees, was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying officials were trying to establish whether a device had been planted or it was a suicide attack.
Pearl Continental's website describes its hotel in Peshawar as "overlooking the famous Peshawar golf course and the historic Bala Hisar Fort".
Government forces launched an offensive earlier this year to crush a Taliban-led uprising in the Swat valley aimed at enforcing Sharia law.
Taliban leaders have promised to launch revenge attacks on major Pakistani cities and claimed a bombing in Lahore last month which left at least 28 people dead.
At least 25 people have been killed in an explosion near a Shi'ite mosque in northern Iraq.
