Truck Bomber Kills 9 as Shiite Pilgrims Travel Through Northern Iraq.

A suicide bomber in northern Iraq killed nine people on Friday, in the second attack in 24 hours on Shiite pilgrims traveling to Karbala to celebrate one of the holiest days in the Shiite calendar, the Iraqi police said. A pickup truck exploded near the central bus station at Balad, a largely Shiite town in the overwhelmingly Sunni province of Salahuddin. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]