AKIPRESS.COM - Some 77 people, most of them Shia pilgrims from Iran and Afghanistan, have been killed in a truck bomb attack in Iraq, officials say.

The blast struck at a petrol station and restaurant near Hilla, some 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad, BBC said.

Busloads of pilgrims had stopped there on their way home from commemorating Arbaeen in the holy city of Karbala. Some 40 people were wounded.

The jihadist group Islamic State said it carried out the attack.

A senior local police officer told the BBC that the victims were on board four buses filling up with fuel at the road stop near the village of Shomali, 80 km (50 miles) south-east of Karbala.

A truck loaded with ammonia nitrate and other explosive material as well as fuel had been parked at the petrol station, and caused massive damage when it was detonated.