A civilian searches for survivors in the rubble at the scene of a car bomb attack near the city of Hilla about 95 kilometers (60 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2016. A car bomb tore... (Associated Press) 
 
 A civilian searches for survivors in the rubble at the scene of a car bomb attack near the city of Hilla about 95 kilometers (60 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2016. A car bomb tore through a gas station on Thursday, killing and wounding scores of people, including 20 Iranians Shiite... (Associated Press) 
 
 BAGHDAD (AP) — The death toll from a car bombing south of Baghdad claimed by the Islamic State group rose to 73 on Friday, including about 40 Iranian pilgrims, Iraqi hospital and police officials said. 
 
 They said 65 other people were wounded in the attack, which took place on Thursday night at a gas station on a major highway near the city of Hilla, about 95 kilometers (60 miles) south of the Iraqi capital. 
 
 Earlier, the officials had put the death toll at 56. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. 
 
 IS claimed the attack in a brief statement on its Aamaq media arm, saying it was a suicide truck bomb. 
 
 The attack appears to have targeted a bus with Iranian pilgrims heading home after a major Shiite religious observance in the holy city of Karbala. 
 
 Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi was quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Thursday night as saying that 80 people were killed, including 40 Iranians. Conflicting death tolls are common in the aftermath of large attacks. 
 
 The attack was the deadliest by IS since a massive car bomb killed around 300 people in Baghdad in July. It also came a day after some dozen small-scale bombings in and around Baghdad killed 31 people and wounded more than a 100 — a particularly bloody day even by the standards of the Iraqi capital, which has for more than a decade endured near-daily violence blamed on IS or its forerunner, al-Qaida in Iraq, and which mostly targeted members of Iraq's Shiite majority. 
 
 The gas station bombing underlined the continuing ability of IS to stage high-profile terror attacks even as a massive Iraqi military operation is underway to dislodge its fighters from its last major urban stronghold in Iraq, the northern city of Mosul. The offensive is aided by volunteer militiamen and the U.S.-led coalition, which has mostly been pounding IS targets in Mosul with airstrikes. 
 
 Moreover, Thursday's IS bombing took place in Iraq's Shiite hinterland south of Baghdad, a region that has largely been spared the near-daily violence that has for years engulfed the capital and Sunni regions. 
 
 Earlier this week, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited Karbala, where he lavishly praised the country's security forces for protecting the pilgrims against attacks by IS. 
 
 Extremist Sunni militants, including the Islamic State group, view Shiites as heretics and routinely target Iranian pilgrims who visit Iraq by the hundreds of thousands to pay homage to major Shiite shrines in Baghdad, and also the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, south of Baghdad, and Samarra, to the north of the capital. 
 
 The Shiite observance in Karbala, called the al-Arbaeen, in which the Iranian victims participated was the 40th day after the death anniversary of a much revered, 7th century religious figure, Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. The ceremonies routinely attract hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, including many Iranians who travel overland into Iraq for the occasion. 
 
 The Iraqi government campaign to retake Mosul began last month, but stiff IS resistance and concerns over the safety of civilians who remain inside the city have slowed the Iraqi forces' progress. ||||| BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide truck bomb killed about 100 people, most of them Iranian Shi’ite pilgrims, at a petrol station in the city of Hilla 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad on Thursday, police and medical sources said. 
 
 Islamic State, the ultra hard-line Sunni militant group that considers all Shi’ites to be apostates, claimed responsibility the attack in an online statement. 
 
 The group also is fighting off a U.S.-backed offensive on its stronghold Mosul, in northern Iraq, in which Iranian-trained Shi’ite militias are taking part. 
 
 The pilgrims were en route back to Iran from the Iraqi Shi’ite holy city of Kerbala, where they had commemorated Arbaeen, the 40th day of mourning for the killing of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, in the 7th century AD, the medical sources said. 
 
 The gas station has a restaurant on its premises that is popular with travelers. Five pilgrim buses were set afire by the blast from the explosives-laden truck, a police official said. 
 
 In recent months Islamic State has intensified attacks in areas out of its control in efforts to weaken the offensive launched on Oct. 17 to retake Mosul, the last major Iraqi city under Islamic State control. 
 
 Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attack without giving a casualty toll. Tehran will continue to support Iraq’s “relentless fight against terrorism,” ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency. 
 
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 U.S. officials condemned the attack. 
 
 “The United States remains steadfast in its partnership with the Iraqi people and government and this attack only serves to strengthen our resolve in defeating ISIL,” National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement. 
 
 The U.S. State Department is in close contact with Iraqi authorities, department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. ||||| Many of the victims of attack in Hilla, which has been claimed by Islamic State, were Iranian nationals, security official says 
 
 Dozens of people, many of them Iranian Shia pilgrims, have been killed by a suicide bombing claimed by Islamic State near the Iraqi city of Hilla, 60 miles south of Baghdad, in the deadliest single attack on Iranian nationals by the Sunni jihadi group. 
 
 A suicide truck bomb packed with 500 litres of ammonium nitrate exploded on Thursday at a petrol station where several buses carrying Iranian pilgrims on their way back from the city of Kerbala had parked. Hilla is situated between Kerbala and Najaf, two cities home to important religious sites for Shias. 
 
 Reports of the death toll varied, with officials quoted by Reuters saying as many as 100 people had died and others quoted by Associated Press putting the toll at at least 56 people, including 20 Iranians. 
 
 Iran’s semi-official Isna news agency said up to 50 Iranians had been killed in the bombing, which also shattered a nearby restaurant. “The Iranian pilgrims martyred were inside a bus,” a source told Isna. 
 
 Isis, which considers all Shias apostates issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack. According to the SITE Intelligence Group, the statement said the suicide bomber “blew up his vehicle amidst their assembly, inflicting among them more than 200 killed and wounded, including Iranians”. 
 
 Falah al-Radhi, a security official for the province affected by the attack, said most of the people killed were Iranian nationals. “A large truck exploded among them. It was a suicide attack,” he told AFP. “There are completely charred corpses at the scene.” Scores of wounded people were transferred to hospitals. 
 
 The bombing was seen as a retaliation – albeit on a foreign territory – to Tehran’s anti-Isis campaign. Although Iran is extensively involved in the fight against Isis in both Iraq and Syria, it has remained largely untouched by suicide bombings. Isis attacks such as those in Paris last November or in major cities in the Middle East are unheard of in the Iranian capital. 
 
 In Iraq, however, they are a regular occurrence. In July, a bomb claimed by Isis killed about 300 people, one of the worst atrocities to have hit the country since 2003. 
 
 About 3 million Iranians are believed to have travelled to Iraq this week for the annual Shia commemoration of arbaeen, an important day in the Shia Muslim calendar.. 
 
 
 
 Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the attack, saying that it would not alter Iran’s backing of the Iraqi government against Isis. 
 
 “This heinous and barbarous crime will not change the determination of Iraqi government and people and will not alter the support of the Islamic Republic of Iran for and its solidarity with the oppressed people of Iraq and their fight against terrorism,” said Bahram Ghassemi, Tehran’s foreign ministry spokesman, according to the semi-official Fars news agency. 
 
 Morad Veisi, an Iranian expert on the role of its armed forces, said Thursday’s bombing could be seen as the retaliation for Iran providing the security for arbaeen. 
 
 “The security in Kerbala during arbaeen this year was a show of force by Iran – there was no attack in the city despite millions attending,” Veisi said. “But the attack is also a response to Iran’s role in fighting Isis in other parts of Iraq. Isis fighters particularly hate Iranian Shias.” 
 
 Veisi said Iran’s support had been instrumental in recent years in pushing back Isis on a number of occasions, including stopping fighters from getting closer to Baghdad after Mosul’s fall and more recently in preventing fighters from taking Erbil and helping the army retake Ramadi. 
 
 News of the bombing came as fighting continued in the northern city and Isis stronghold of Mosul, where a US-backed ground offensive by the Iraqi army is inching closer to more besieged parts of the city. As they lose ground in Mosul, the jihadis have intensified their attacks in other parts of Iraq. 
 
 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Iraqi security forces at the site of the truck bomb attack in Hilla. Photograph: Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters 
 
 Isis has suffered major blows at the hands of the Iraqi army, supported by Iran-backed Shia militias and Kurdish peshmerga, in the five weeks since the Mosul offensive was launched. 
 
 
 
 “The Iraqi advance on the south and south-east of the city has started to pick up some steam, which we think is a really great development,” John Dorrian, a coalition spokesman was quoted as saying by the AFP, which reported that Iraqi forces were battling against Isis in the neighbourhood ofKhadraa on Thursday. 
 
 Iran’s involvement in the campaign against Isis in Iraq and Syria is carried by the Quds force, an external arm of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards led by its commander, Qasem Soleimani, who wields huge influence among Shia militias in both countries. 
 
 
 
 Compared with Iraq, where Iran’s involvement is regarded as helpful by the US secretary of state, John Kerry, its role in Syria is more controversial. Iran has been a staunch ally of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and has been accused of helping him quell opposition. 
 
 Battle for Mosul: Iraq asks for UK help to get thermobaric weapons Read more 
 
 Iran is hoping that US president-elect, Donald Trump, might change his country’s approach on Syria, shifting away from a focus on removing Assad and instead helping the Syrian army in pushing back Isis from Raqqa, the capital of the Isis “caliphate”. Trump has said he is open to warming relations with Russia, which is allied with Tehran, over Syria. 
 
 
 
 Iranian leaders insist their forces in both countries act only as military advisers, invited by their central governments, but the rising death toll in Iran points to a greater involvement. 
 
 
 
 This week, Mohammad-Ali Shahidi Mahallati, head of Iran’s foundation of martyrs, said: “The number of Iran’s martyrs as defenders of shrine has exceeded 1,000”. He was using Iranian terminology for guard forces sent by Iran to Syria. 
 
 Iran has also controversially recruited hundreds of Afghan refugees living in Iran to be sent to Syria. 
 

– ISIS carried out its deadliest attack in Iraq in months Thursday night, killing at least 73 people, including dozens of Iranian pilgrims, in an attack on a gas station on a highway south of Baghdad. At least 65 other people were wounded in the attack, which targeted Shiite pilgrims who had visited the holy city of Karbala, the AP reports. The Guardian and Reuters—which puts the death toll at 100—report that a truck laden with 500 liters of ammonium nitrate exploded at the gas station in the city of Hilla, setting five pilgrim buses alight. In a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, ISIS, which considers all Shiites to be heretics, boasted of killing or wounding 200, including Iranians. The AP notes that ISIS has stepped up attacks around Iraq in an effort to weaken the offensive to retake Mosul. The previous day, at least 31 people were killed in roughly a dozen bombings in Baghdad. The Guardian reports that around 3 million Iranians are in Iraq this week to mark a holy day in the Shiite calendar, and the Thursday night attack was seen as retaliation for Tehran's anti-ISIS stance. Iran's foreign ministry issued a statement denouncing the "heinous and barbarous crime," believed to be ISIS' deadliest attack on Iranian nationals, and vowing that Tehran will continue to support Iraq in its "relentless fight against terrorism." (A US service member assisting anti-ISIS forces in Syria was killed on Thursday.)