A suicide car bomb targeting Iranian pilgrims struck near a Shiite shrine in the holy city of Kufa yesterday, killing at least 10 people and wounding 37, police said.

The bomb exploded about 7:15 a.m., local time, near the shrine of Maitham al-Tamar and yards from the Kufa mosque. Ten people were killed and 37 wounded, including several Iranian pilgrims visiting the holy area, police Captain Salim Ghanim said. Other police at the scene said the suicide attacker was driving a minivan behind two big buses carrying Iranian pilgrims.

The explosion apparently occurred as the pilgrims were getting off the bus near the shrine of Maitham al-Tamar, not far from the Kufa mosque, police said. The buses were destroyed and a wall of the shrine was damaged. Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion immediately fell on Sunni extremists amid rising sectarian tensions in the country. “We denounce this act targeting innocent people and pilgrims,” said Sahib al-Amiri, an aide to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. “It was meant to shake the stability in Najaf.”

Kufa and its twin city Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, are in a relatively peaceful area of the country.

On April 6, a car bomb exploded in Najaf, killing at least 10 people some 300 yards from the Imam Ali shrine and on a street that leads to the city’s massive cemetery — used by Shiites from throughout the country who come to the city to bury their dead. Pilgrims traveling to holy sites in the area also have been targeted.

Other past attacks included a mortar barrage hit the Kufa mosque in August 2004, killing 27 people and wounding 63, and a car bomb in Najaf in August 2003 that killed more than 85 people, including Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim. Attacks on houses of worship have been stoking constant tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in Iraq.