The tribunal empowered to try war crimes issued its first charges against Saddam Hussein and said it would announce within days when the ousted dictator will stand trial for his life.
The overnight attack in the highway town of Musayyib was the most lethal since the Iraqi government took power in April and the second deadliest single bombing since the war began in 2003.
It prompted denunciations of the authorities in parliament and calls for local militia to take up arms.
Some 15 suicide bombers have struck within just over 48 hours in the capital and along the main road south in what al Qaeda’s Iraq wing has declared is a campaign to seize Baghdad.
